Black, White and Green
by WordlyVaudevillian
Summary: A story about the lives of two very special Derse pawns, and their adventures on the Battlefield at the center of Skaia. No kids, no trolls, no shipping. Written in the second person. Hussiekind writing specibus. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Wake Up

When you first wake up, everything is cold. And wet. Very wet, too. Cold? Wet? What do these things mean? You guess they mean whatever it is you're feeling right now. They just seem like the right words to use.

Your eyes crack open for the very first time. You guess you don't mind the cold, or the wet. What else is there to feel? Hell if you know. You only have a few second's worth of experiences to draw back on. You're curious. Curious. What a strange word. You seem to mind the curious more than the cold or the wet.

You try to move your limbs around, to get a feel for your surroundings. You are floating in water. It's not uncomfortable. Even if you did have something else to compare it to, you don't think you would mind it very much. You try to get a feel for your body. You touch your left arm with your right claw, and move it down to your where you think your left ribs must be. Your four digits find nothing but rigid carapace all the way down. You guess you're okay with this. A hard shell must be useful if something's trying to eat you, right?

You look up, then down. You reach out with your right claw. Yep. It's a tank, all right. A little bigger than you, and perfectly cylindrical. You have just enough room to stretch out a little. You guess this must be your house. A little on the small side, but you figure you'll make do.

You see others like you, in houses of their own. Maybe about ten or twelve more, from what you can see. Most of them are still sleeping. A few of them look like they've been awake for a little while already; they are calmly and fondly regarding their surroundings. One or two of them seem to be looking for the front door to their homes. You wave hello to your new neighbors. Those who notice you wave back.

You notice something a little strange about them. Your neighbors, like you, are black all over. Why, then, are two little _white_ tubes sticking out of each of their backs, and leading into the floors? You suppose you must have the tubes, too, but you can't really reach that part of your back from any angle. You didn't really mind the idea, anyway. What's wrong with a little color?

You've only been awake for a few minutes now, but already you're starting to feel quite tired. The way you're floating is pretty comfortable, so you see nothing wrong with going back to sleep. Your neighbors look like they're getting pretty tired, too.

When you wake up for the second time, you notice something has changed. Your left arm used to be just a regular old, jet black arm. Now there's a grid-like pattern of short white lines, perpendicular to each other, in little squares on your wrist. You guess that's pretty cool. Yesterday, your arm had nothing special or unusual about it, but today, it's got all these white lines on it! You wonder what cool developments tomorrow will bring!

You really wish you could communicate with your neighbors a little more, though. You tap on your only window, which is to say, your whole wall. You hope the tapping will garner some attention. You also wish you could find a way out of your house, and maybe explore the world outside. Maybe even give your neighbors a neighborly handshake. Alas, there's no way out from the roof or the floor. There's no WAY you would try to break the glass, either. It's your own house! Why would someone ever want to do something so silly?

The sound of your tapping doesn't carry very well, and your aqueous surroundings also limit the force with which you can tap the glass. Also, most of your neighbors, even some of those who were already awake yesterday, are still asleep today. Since you've got nothing better to do, you decide to do what exploring you can. From inside your house. With your eyes. It occurs to you that you might be able to see what's directly behind you if you turn around. You rotate your body 180 degrees.

You see a single large tank behind you. This tank contains a large, black knight, maybe about eight times your size. It looks like just a huge horse's head, but you know it's called a knight. Horse? Knight? You don't know how you know what these things are. You just know that you know, ya know? It really is an impressive sight. Maybe it's your leader. The leader of the pawns. Pawns. That's what you and your neighbors are called. Of course you're pawns! What else would you be, silly? You think that someone who doesn't know who or what they are isn't very much of a someone at all! You don't really question how you came to know that one.

Leader of the pawns… no, that's not right. That would be the King. It has to be the King. Who else would it be? If the knight was the leader of the pawns, then who would the King lead? That's a stupid question.

Maybe the knight is like a sub-king. It's just so _big_, it HAS to be one of your superiors. This knight doesn't look quite finished, though. Maybe you should ask your neighbor. He's been watching you behold the knight for a little while now.

You wave at him. He waves back. You point to the knight, and shrug your shoulders. He looks at it, and then shrugs back at you. He doesn't know.

You point at him, then at yourself, then shrug your shoulders, tilting your head to one side. You're asking a question, not just declaring your ignorance. He shrugs back at you, like he's perplexed by the question. Just what are you trying to ask him? You gesture to all your fellow pawns, then shrug your shoulders with a head tilt.

He shrugs back at you. But this is a more knowledgeable shrug. Like he knows what you're trying to ask, but doesn't know the answer to your question. Even if he did, you're pretty sure the message would be too complex to convey through claw-points, shoulder-shrugs or head-tilts alone.

You guess this guy is your new best friend. He must be, since he's your only friend so far. But you don't know all that much about him, you've only just met the guy. Maybe you'll save the 'best' part for later. You hope you'll make other friends, too.

An alarm sounds. But not really an alarm, more like just a buzzer. Most of the pawns have already woken up by now, but those still sleeping are roused rather rudely. Some bright lights turn on overhead, illuminating the area outside your immediate neighborhood. The pawns who just woke up look a little distraught. You guess that's because they had been sleeping all this time, and didn't have time to figure things out like you did. You give them your best reassuring ogle.

Actually, you haven't really figured out all that many things. You speculated about your home. You speculated about your neighbors. You speculated about the tubes. You speculated about your arm tattoo, and if the others had ones like it. You speculated about the knight and about leadership. And you made a new friend!

Realizing that you don't have it all figured out, either, starts to make you feel a little distraught, too. In the new light, you can see yourself in the reflection of your window. You try to give yourself your best reassuring ogle. You cringe. Is THAT your best reassuring ogle? It's more like a disconcerting ogle. In light of this development, you try instead for a re-concerting ogle.

Ohgodohgodohgod. Maybe you should think about something else. You're really starting to creep yourself out. You turn away from your reflection, but it won't stop following you!

Just as you're on the verge of flipping the fuck out, a large metal door opens on one wall of the room. You see some more neighbors come through the door, around sixteen of them. They are wearing uniforms and hats in a variety of pretty colors. They must be pawns who figured out how to leave their houses! Maybe they'll show you how to leave, too! Maybe you can all explore together; see what's on the other side of that door! Maybe you'll get a cool hat, too!

The new pawns break formation and set to work. Three of them come up to your house. Two of them link their arms together to form a step-up for the third. This pawn begins unscrewing the roof of your house. You guess that's okay with you. If it's the way to get out, and all. You can put the roof back on later if you want to. The pawn finishes unscrewing the roof, and throws it to the side. He sticks out his claw to you. You see his line grid. Like yours, but different. You take his claw in yours, and he pulls you outside. The tubes at your back fall off with the slightest tug.

You take your first breath of air.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Join the Army of Darkness

After a few minutes, all of your neighbors are out of their houses. The room now holds about thirty pawns, some with hats, some without. The hatted pawns seem to know what they're doing. The ones that freed you beckon for you to follow them. As such, you and your neighbors follow the new pawns through the big metal door. You turn back and look at the big tank with the knight inside. Nope. He's not ready yet.

You find yourself and the procession marching through a long hallway. You walk beside your friend from the other room. You raise a hand in greeting. He responds in kind. You look around the hallway as you walk. More houses similar to your own contain other creatures. They might be other pawns, but then again they might not be. Whatever they are, they don't look like they're ready. You've been around other pawns long enough to get a pretty good idea of what a creature should look like. You're not sure, but you think that two heads on one guy isn't a very good idea. These guys may never be ready.

You turn to your friend. He's still gazing at the variety of creatures in their houses. He turns to you and shrugs. You shrug back. Damned if you know what these guys are.

After roughly 48 paces from the start of the hallway, (or roughly 67 paces since leaving your house) you all come to another metal door. It opens to let you all through, and then closes again once the last pawn has passed. It must have opened because it wanted you all to go through.

The room you are in now has sort of a raised platform on the far wall. Hanging above the platform, as well as on the sides of some square columns, are a whole bunch of purple banners and flags. You mean, these things are EVERYWHERE in this room. On each of them is a black upside-down pentagon. You quite like this pentagon. Its shape, its color… it actually looks to you like a nice design for a house. Your mind briefly flashes back to memories of your current (former?) house. Maybe a little bit bigger, and with five sides. That would work quite nicely, you think.

Standing on the raised platform is a large guy in robes. He's a lot taller than you, you think. You say you think because it's hard to tell with him on his raised platform like that. It's about four or five paces high. Is that what leaders are supposed to do? Stand tall above their subjects and give commands? You wonder if the guy will give you a command to follow.

As the procession approaches the platform, you are able to get a closer look at the robed guy. They are nice robes indeed, you think. All purple and fancy. You behold his robes for a while, then shift your gaze to the rest of his persona. His hat, like his robes, is of the same deep purple as the flags and banners adorning the hall. The hat itself is pretty tall; it looks to be a little more than half your height. The guy is also holding a purple scepter in both hands. Wait. Not a scepter. Just a regular staff, with a curled top. Course it's just a staff. Only kings have scepters. You know this for a fact. And that guy is not the King. You never thought he was, not even for one second. You're pretty darn sure you'd know your own King when you saw him, and THAT isn't him. He still ranks above you, though. Just look at his hat!

The hatted pawns stand in a square formation to the guy's right. You and your hatless friends stand in a similar formation to the guy's left. The guy approaches the edge of the platform. You can see his shoes if you look straight ahead. He motions to the hatted pawns. He points them in the direction of the door to his right. The guy motions to your group. He points you to the door to his left. He then raises his staff high in the air with his right hand, then brings it down onto the platform with speed. A resounding, high-pitched "clonk" rings through the hall. The hatted pawns salute the guy, turn, salute your group, turn back around, and march out of the door as instructed. You feel inclined to salute them back as they leave, and apparently so does the rest of your group. You all proceed to salute the robed guy, then turn to your right and march out of the door.

You are in another hallway. This one has no creatures living in it, it's really quite bare. Just the same dull purple metal as far as the eye can see. The hallway is quite narrow, only about six paces across. The ceiling, though, looks to be at least ten paces above your head.

You think your procession is quite orderly. You all sort of shifted into a four by four square formation as you walked. The other pawns are only about a pace from you on either side. You are surrounded on all four sides by pawns, with your buddy at your left side. Everyone has the same stride length, one pace. It's not hard at all to keep up with the pawn in front of you, and the pawn on your six keeps perfect distance behind you. You feel that if you stopped at any time, the guy behind you wouldn't even bump into you. He'd just stop at the same distance behind you he has kept since you started marching. But you wouldn't stop marching without cause. Then you'd be responsible for a break in formation, and you could get everyone in trouble for being late.

With each pace your party advances, you hear a single "clang" from each carapaced foot stepping on the metal floor in unison. You like to walk at a certain speed, and you guess everyone else likes that speed, too.

Twenty-six paces. Twenty-seven paces. Twenty-eight paces. Twenty-nine paces. Thirty paces. Thirty-one paces. Thirty-two paces. You step through the open door, following the guy in front of you as usual.

This room is much wider than the hallway. The ceiling's a lot lower, too. Low walls run along the length of one section, such that the section is divided into six lanes.

Greeting you at the door is a slightly taller-than-normal pawn. His hat is more round than the regular pawns' hats, and has a brim that comes forward in sort of a semicircle. He also has a large black star pinned on his uniform. Must be a captain or something. He salutes your group as you enter. Your group stops in front of him and returns the salute. He directs your attention to a sign on the ceiling to his right. It depicts two pawns. One is in uniform, the other is naked. The pawn with the uniform has some sort of handheld device and is holding the left arm of the naked pawn. A red light is coming out of the device and onto the naked pawn's wrist.

The tall pawn uses both arms to indicate the line of pawns on your left, and points them to the second lane. The four of them salute, and then march to line up in the lane. The pawn then indicates your line, and points you to the third lane. You salute, and follow the pawn in front of you to lane three.

The lane is about two paces wide, that is to say, two pawns could wait in line side-by-side with a good amount of elbow room. Your line proceeds down the right-hand side of the lane. The low walls give way to desks on either side of the lane with little black boxes on them. A uniformed pawn is sitting at the desk on the right, and he beckons the pawn in front of you. He approaches the desk as asked, and you step forward a pace to take his place. You can see your friend a few paces to your left; he seems to be going through a similar process.

The pawn at the desk beckons you to approach. You step up to the desk and salute him. He has a handheld device in his right hand. He points to the grid of lines on your wrist. He gives you a reassuring look as you put your left wrist on the desk. This won't hurt a bit, he seems to say.

A red light shines on your wrist. You hear a beep coming from the pawn's desk-box. A little window on the box shows a picture of you. You find it funny, because before, the window showed a picture of the pawn in front of you. You were able to get a good look at him when you were all in your houses, and that was definitely him. Now the picture is definitely of you. You'd gotten a good look at your reflection, and you'd know that ogle anywhere. A bunch of little letters and numbers are on the right side of the picture, but you can't get a good look at them. There's a big number underneath your picture, though. It reads "#00002323." Twenty-three-twenty-three. You think it has a nice ring to it. You're pretty sure you saw the other guy's number, too, before the picture changed. It was #00002319.

You proceed out of the laned section of the room. More uniformed pawns are waiting in this part of the room. Two of them are showing #2319 how to get into a uniform. You get very excited. You feel like you're in the middle of becoming part of something very big and cool! Wearing hats, following orders, and maybe even going on adventures!

A pawn approaches you, and you decide to get a good look at his uniform. The left side of it has deep purple and light purple in a checkerboard pattern, and the right side of it is solid red. The top part, around the collar, is a solid, light purple cloth, a separate piece of clothing, with a black, upside-down pentagon on it. A white emblem is in the middle of the pentagon. It looks like an upside-down capital T with a horizontal line through it halfway up. The hats are sort of oval-ey, worn with the sharp bits on the front and back of the head. The uniforms are of varying color and pattern, but light purple, deep purple, red, orange and green seem to dominate, with pink and purple for the collar-cloths. Hats share the same color scheme as the main uniform, sans collar-cloth.

In the pawn's hands are a purple-and-red uniform, a light purple collar-cloth, and a green-and-orange hat. You are getting pretty close to flipping the fuck out with excitement. A second pawn comes up and takes the main piece of the uniform from the first. He throws it over your head, and pulls it down for you. Your head fits right into a hole in the uniform, with smaller holes at the sides for your arms. Easy enough to put on, and comfortable to wear.

It's a perfect fit. The collar cloth is next, it just goes over your head and comes down the front and back. Just a rectangular cloth with a hole in it, really.

After the collar cloth comes the hat. You grab it from the pawn, and put it on your head. They don't seem to mind. It's hard to tell, but you think they're smiling. One of them pats you on the back, and gives you a thumbs-up. Welcome to the team, brother.

Since there is no immediate need to move out until all of your neighbors have gotten through, you find your friend again. You raise a claw in greeting, and approach him. He's wearing a uniform pretty similar to yours, but not exactly. The collar cloth is the same light purple, but his main uniform is just solid purple on the right side and solid red on the left side. His hat has a green brim and the rest of it is solid orange. You're both looking pretty darn spiffy.

He raises his claw back to you. You raise both your arms out to show off the new uniform. His head goes back a little in silent laughter, his blunt teeth visible in a broad smile. You shake his hand, because you feel that's what friends should do when they become friends. You gesture to all this. The desks, the boxes, the lanes, the banners, the uniforms, the pawns, the hats. You want to know what he thinks of it all. He glances around, a little nervously. You think you understand. You want to know what it's all about, too. The King must have some reason for putting you all through this process. Something he wants you all to do. Whatever it is, you think it's going to be an adventure.

Welcome to the team, brother.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Retrieve Arms from Rack

All of the pawns are processed pretty quickly. The captain walks into the dressing area via one of the lanes. You once again notice that he's pretty tall, but not tall like the robe-guy. Not as scary-looking, either. A gentle-looking guy, and a pawn just like you. Still one of your superiors, though.

Your original unit of sixteen gets back into 4x4 formation, and faces him. He motions you all to the door at the end of the dressing area, and ends the command with a salute. You all salute back to him, then individually turn 180 degrees, and march out. A sign above the door says "Training."

Nothing unusual about the ceiling in this room, it's the same height as the one before it, and uniform height throughout. You think maybe you could touch it if you stood on three or four of your buddies, each on the shoulders of the one below him. What a silly thing to think about! You'll stop thinking of this tomfoolery at once.

Ceilings aside, the rest of the room is enormous! There are staircases to your left and right leading down to the main part of the room. The main part of the room looks to be about thirty paces wide by eighty paces long! A sign above the one to your left carries a picture of a pawn with a sword. A sign above the one to your right carries a picture of a pawn with a spear.

Looks like the captain from the other room followed you guys in. He approaches the railing between the two staircases, and turns to face your group. He motions to the sign to his right, with the picture of a sword-wielder. He then motions to the sign to his left, with the picture of a spear-wielder. He points down to the main area, but does not indicate which staircase to take. He salutes you all, and then turns around to face the balcony.

Looks like it's time to make a decision. Sword or spear? You guess if you're going to be doing any adventuring, you'd rather have a quick, light sword. Easy to block with, and to make swift, deadly attacks.

You head in the direction of the left staircase. Twelve paces later, you and seven other pawns are climbing down the stairs in no particular formation. You check, but your friend isn't one of them. He must have chosen spears. Good for him.

At the bottom of the stairs, you see four racks of swords lined up on the left wall, with eight swords per rack. Standing in front of them is a pawn who's a little shorter than all of you. He has a fancy round hat, and a black star on his uniform. He must be another captain. He motions to the sword rack. Take one, he seems to say.

The swords are all the same size, and of the same dull grey metal. You take the first one you see, and test its weight in your grip. It's not too heavy, and pretty well-balanced. Just how an adventurer's sword should feel. You do wish, however, that you could get one that matched your hat. But it doesn't matter; you don't want to come across as picky. You hold it in your right hand and swing it in a downwards sweep. It looks pretty sharp.

After everyone has picked out a sword, the eight of you follow the short captain to an area in the main part of the room with some training dummies. The floor in this area consists of a black and white checkerboard of square tiles. You think it looks quite pretty. Training dummies stand in four rows of four, spaced evenly apart so that there's plenty of room to attack and strafe around them. An identical set of sixteen dummies is on the other side of the room, in line with your set. The captain directs your attention to these dummies, and claps his hands. Get to work!

You approach one of the training dummies. You think it looks just like a pawn, except white, and with a little more garish to its garb. Pink, yellow and light blue seem to dominate its wardrobe pallet. You notice a white, upside-down pentagon with a black emblem on the dummy's pink collar-cloth. Same pentagon, same emblem, just in different colors. Just like you guys, but opposite, you think. Finally, you notice that the uniform has a hole in its side, and is stained with red. What an odd fashion choice.

In any case, your fellow pawns have already started swinging away. You are standing in front of your dummy, and a square to its right. You lash out with your new sword to your right with a downward sweeping motion. The dummy is soft, like the material your uniform is made of. It leans back under the force of your swing, and just sort of wobbles in place. You hit it again, this time from the left side. You contemplate coming at it head-on, but that thought just doesn't seem right to you. Gotta pick a side and go with it, ya know?

You and your fellow pawns spend the next ten minutes or so on the training dummies. During that time, you feel inspired to use a wide variety of slashes and stabs to inflict a world of hurt on that thing. The captain blows a whistle. He claps his hands twice, then leads you to the other side of the training room. You all sheath your swords and follow him.

Here, you meet up with the spear pawns, who have also just finished their training. The tall captain and the short captain stand next to each other. The height difference is quite noticeable. Most pawns are just the same height as one another. You wonder what happened with these guys?

The tall captain directs your attention to a large window on the wall here. He motions for you all to sit on the floor. He draws a small handheld device from the pocket of his uniform, and presses a button on it.

The window on the wall comes to life. The first thing it shows is a purple background with the black pentagon and white emblem on it. You've seen this emblem many times before. It's the one on all your uniforms, and on the banners and flags. In fancy white text, a single word appears below the pentagon. Derse. Below that word, another appears in the same white text. Home.

The captain presses another button on his doohickey, and the window shows something else. It's the same purple background, but this time it shows a picture of the King. You already knew it was the King before the word even appeared. What sort of subject doesn't recognize his own king? The tall, broad figure. The kingly crown atop his kingly crown. The long, flowing purple cape. The noble red-and-orange robes. And most importantly, the royal scepter, ultimate symbol of his Kinghood. Next picture!

This picture has a radiant gold background that kind of makes your eyes hurt. The pentagon in this picture is white with the same black emblem. You've seen this before on the uniform of the training dummy. White text with a black border appears. A single word. Prospit. A second word below it. Enemy. Oh, how you hate these guys already!

Next slide has a picture of a white pawn in uniform. He has a spear with a banner of Prospit on it, and looks like a very angry person. The caption below reads "Aggress."

The picture after that is of a white knight, full sized. For comparison, a black pawn stands beside it. An arrow points to the pawn, with the word "You" in small letters above the arrow. The knight stands tall on four hooves, at least thirty times the height of the pawn. The general caption for this picture is "Abscond."

The next picture is of what seems to be a white pawn, only bigger and wider. Beside him is a Derse pawn for comparison, about half his height and breadth. His arms are big and muscle-y, about the size of a pawn each. He carries a big stone club in his left hand, and there is what seems to be a little castle tower sticking out of his back. There are also big lumps of muscle on his right shoulder and on his back. He looks a little deformed. Like they tried to make a bigger, stronger pawn, but messed him up a little. The caption to this had more words with smaller text. "Aggress, aided by allies." Yeah, it looks like you and maybe five or six friends could take one of these down.

Another slide shows a large golden ship. The black pawn is barely visible on the deck at the current level of magnification. The text here reads "Avoid." The red laser coming from one of the ship's guns helps reinforce this message.

The last slide shows a pretty-looking light blue circle on a black background. The circle has some pretty white swirls on it, with sort of a faded white dot in the centre. Closely surrounding the dot is a complex spiral of white lines. You like the look of this picture, whatever it is. You think you saw it atop the King's scepter. You wonder what it is; what it means. The white text reads "Skaia." Skaia. It's a beautiful thing, whatever it is. More text forms below into a second word. "Destroy." You're not sure how you feel about this.

Destroy is one of those bad things, right? Or the kind of thing you do to a bad thing when you want it gone? You aren't quite sure. You thought that was what it meant, but now you're not sure. You look around to your friend and make eye contact. His blank, confused sort of ogle meets yours.

The picture fades out to total black. Some more words form on the screen, but gradually - new words fading in as you read the ones before them.

"At the centre of the Incipisphere lies Skaia, dormant crucible of unlimited creative potential. The forces of light are charged with its defense, while the forces of darkness covet its destruction. And so the forces of light and darkness must battle to the bitter end to determine its fate. But take heart, young Dersites. This is a battle that the forces of light are destined to lose."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

(Next)

After that presentation, you're not really sure what to make of all this. But you don't have time to think about that right now, because you're getting another order from the tall captain. He beckons your unit to follow him to the next room.

Your friend has been fidgeting with his spear, tossing its weight from hand to hand. At its full height, it comes up to the top of his head. He now twists the spear's head ninety degrees. The weapon sort of telescopes into itself, down to about the length of your sword. He twists the head back to lock it into place, and sheaths it into a fold of his uniform.

You all follow the captain into the next room. This one has a sign that says "Projection Room" above the door. You wonder what wonders lie within this room.

The room is completely dark. You feel at peace for a moment, and a little bit sleepy. The captain pulls out a different handheld doohickey from the pocket of his uniform, and presses a button. Red lights shine out of the floor and ceiling in many different directions, just barely illuminating the room. It's a very round room, and about as wide at its widest point as the training room.

The captain doesn't need to direct anyone's attention to the light display; it's already captured the gaze of every other pawn in the room. You guess he presses some more buttons or something. You're not really sure; you're too busy looking at the dancing red lines. What you do notice is that the lines stop their dancing and shift into a shape.

You see a big cube. One of its sides is at least as big as two of your friends. The cube is floating above the ground such that another cube could fit on top of it and touch the ceiling, and a third cube could fit below it and touch the floor. Each of the sides of the cube is made of a checkerboard pattern of red light and no light. They look like the floor of the last room, except instead of black and white, the sides were made of red and nothing.

More red lines come from doohickeys on the ceiling and floor, and write something in the air. "Battlefield." The cube stops rotating, and the top face flips down to face your group. More lines come out, and form a picture of a castle in the middle. The words read "Derse Castle."

The cube disappears, and reappears a second later. It keeps blinking like this for a while. Well, most of it does, anyway. The part of the cube that always stays visible is a pretty big circle around the castle, maybe about two-thirds of that face's total surface area. The display seems to be highlighting just this region around the castle. "Safe Zone." Good to know.

The cube then flips around to show the face on the other side. Another castle is drawn into the landscape. "Prospit Castle." You guess that's where the enemy's castle must be, on the other side of the battlefield to your own. That makes sense. The same circle on the other side is highlighted in a similar fashion. "No-Go Zone." Guess you aren't allowed that close to the castle. Not that you'd want to be. It sounds like it would be pretty well-defended.

One of the faces between the two castles is shown. This time, the whole cube comes down, and is enlarged, with the displayed face being shown like a tabletop. You can't see all of the rest of the cube now. A slowly rotating King's symbol is visible, but you're not sure which one it is. All the light is the same color red. "Black King's Haunt." You guess the whole face must be where your King lurks, and his forces do battle to protect him at all costs. That's the most important thing. The King must live on.

The cube deftly flips the fuck about once more to show the face opposite the Black King's haunt. Another King symbol is drawn in, and rotates continuously. "White King's Haunt." This must be where the White King does battle with his forces. You guess your main goal is to kill the White King? Yeah, that makes sense to you.

The cube disappears. Some regular white lights come on so that the room isn't completely dark. The captain leads you all into the next room.

* * *

This room is really more of a hallway. The captain goes forward about 20 paces, and then stops a few paces from the wall. He turns to his left, and keeps marching. Your unit does the same. The four pawns who were on the left of the procession are now leading the march, and the four pawns who were leading are now on the right side of the formation. You continue on for another 40 paces or so, stop, and then make another left turn.

You are now marching back in the direction of your house. You're looking forward to some more rest. Today has gone on for much longer than yesterday did. You've learned so much, and done so many exciting things! You begin to suspect that your glass house may not be your house for very much longer. Maybe some new pawns will move in! You do hope that they take good care of the place. You wonder when you and your friends will get to go to the battlefield. You think it sounds like a swell adventure!

After about sixty paces, you come to another metal door. "Battle Simulation." You wonder what that second word means. Is it time for fighting already?

This room is about as wide as the dressing room was, but not nearly as long. It has two large metal doors on opposite sides of the far wall. A sign between the doors depicts a formation. Pictures of weapons fill a four by four grid. Sword, spear, sword, spear. Next row. Spear, sword, spear, sword. These two rows are repeated again in the same order to complete the grid.

The short captain from the training room blows his whistle and points to this sign. You're surprised. You didn't think he'd followed you all from the projection room. Regardless, you get into the indicated formation with the others. You find yourself in the second column of the second row.

The short captain indicates that he wants columns 1 and 2 to go through the metal door to your left, and he wants columns 3 and 4 to go through the metal door to your right. He blows his whistle once more. You all salute, and split off into the two groups.

This room is pretty dark, like the one with all the pretty red lights. You think you can make out a red-light-doohickey on the ceiling, and one on the floor. The dual doohickeys activate, giving you light enough to see. You realize that the floor doohickey isn't actually ON the floor, but is UNDER it. You figure the floor must be made of window.

The floor is illuminated in some parts with squares of red, and is not-illuminated in other parts with squares of nothing. It reminds you of the big cube, but with only one face. However, this face is only eight by eight squares, each square only a pace long. Your group decides to line up in the second row you come to. You take the sixth square from the left, or the third one from the right. It's a nothing square. You see your friend to your immediate right, on one of the red squares. He nervously takes out his spear and un-telescopes it. He's making you a little nervous, too, so you draw your sword, just to feel its weight in your hand.

Suddenly, a buzzer sounds, like the one you heard this morning. Eight red outlines of pawns appear in the second-to-last row. Outlines of heads, arms, legs, uniforms, swords and spears can be seen. It's already starting to creep you out a little. Then you see the eyes; little, beady red dots. Granted, no more little or beady than those of you or your companions, but terrifying all the same.

You want to move forward. To approach the enemy, if that's what they are. To just get it started and over with already. But you just can't bring yourself to leave the square you're standing on. None of the others can, either.

Finally, the third red pawn from the left takes a pace forward. You take two paces forward, testing the weight of the sword in your hand. A still silence ensues. You look over your right shoulder to your friend. He nervously takes a pace forward.

All of the red pawns advance one pace at the same time. If you advance another pace, you will be right in front of their line. You turn back to your friend again, one square behind you to the right. You trust that he'll have your back. You take one more step forward.

You are immediately assaulted by the pawn to your right. He swings his sword in a large overhead arc. You meet his sword with yours, using both hands to block the powerful swing. You are locked in a static, deadly strife with the ghostly red figure. You push against him with all your might. Luckily, the foe to your left is occupied with one of your comrades.

You summon all of your strength into one final push against your foe. You succeed in pushing him back a little bit. You swing your sword at him again, but he auto-parries the blow, and your swords glance off each other. Your parry left him on the ropes, so you aim for a quick strike down his torso from the right. Your sword goes right through the figure. He rapidly flashes and disappears. You occupy the space where he previously stood.

You're lucky there weren't any more pawns behind him, because they could now get the drop on you from such a position. Instead, you take advantage of the break in enemy line, and advance one pace. You turn 180 degrees to get a look at the fray.

Your friend has engaged the pawn to his right, and they are struggling spear-to-spear. He looks like he needs your help. You quickly lash out to your left, and slay the red pawn he's struggling with.

The battle doesn't last very long after that. Your unit mops up the remaining forces before you can offer help. No friendly casualties, it seems. You wonder if you would have really gotten hurt if their swords slashed you. After all, they were just red lights… right?

Your team gets back into formation to pass through the two-paces-wide door on the other side of the room.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Board Dropship

You regroup with the other half of your unit on the other side of the door, and merge the four columns back into a square. The captains are already waiting for you. The tall one extends an arm with a raised thumb in your unit's direction. Well done.

You come to another six-pace-wide hallway. The captains occupy the middle two rows, and lead your group along it by four paces. This hallway is definitely the longest yet. You figure you must have passed the training room by now. In fact, you're absolutely sure of it. You seem to have an uncanny knack for measuring precise distances that you have already travelled.

You've just passed the room with the robed guy when your group comes to another metal door, which opens and lets you through.

This room is large and square-shaped. You think it's about fifty or sixty paces square. A large metal door seems to be in the middle of each of the four walls. You wonder where they all lead. The captains walk forward to the middle of the room, turn right, and keep walking. Your unit follows suit, once again shifting the pawns leading. You come to the metal door on the wall, the sign above which reads "Docks."

You step out into the docks area. This area is very wide, it runs hundreds of paces to the right and left. It's about twenty paces long in front of you, where there is a dark purple stone railing just before a large window. The window is huge! It runs from wall to wall, floor to ceiling on that side of the room! The ceiling is maybe twenty paces high in this room, much higher than in the main room you just came from.

You go to the other end of the room before turning left and moving across the long, hallway-like dock area. Other pawns are milling around this area, they are wearing slightly different uniforms. These pawns' uniforms are white with blue collar-cloths. Their hats are more rounded, and white with blue rims. Some of them are walking with a sense of purpose; of direction. Others seem to just be leaning against the wall or railing, not doing anything in particular. They must be off-duty. At least you don't have to work ALL the time in this job.

As you walk, you can see walkways extending out of the large window to the right. The walkways are spaced out every forty paces or so. They seem to just lead to the great black beyond outside. On closer inspection, it occurs to you that there may not be a window there after all. But there has to be… Right?

Some of the walkways have little grey floating rooms on the ends of them. You can't get a very good look at them through the other pawns, though.

Your party turns onto the fourth walkway you come to. As you go onto the walkway, you look around. Nope. No window. The walkway looks to be about thirty paces long. You see another of the small floating rooms tied to something on the right side of the walkway. The wall is a funny shape, like a rectangle with two triangles sticking out of it. Six sides in all. Two circular metal circles are sticking out of the wall a little bit. The circles are stained black in their middles, and a little bit on the edges as well. It's sort of an odd paint job. The black marks aren't even symmetrical!

As you march further down the walkway, you start to see the room's left wall. It's not really much of a wall; it sort of sticks out like a triangle. You stop in front of a rectangular panel on the lower part of this wall.

The panel opens, revealing the room's interior. You can't see very much, though, just a little of the grey ceiling. A metal walkway extends from the floor of the room, over to the walkway you're standing on. It touches down onto the floor. The captains stand to one side. The tall one gestures to inside the room. This must be where you part ways. They salute your party as you board the curious metal room. Is this the room that takes you to the battlefield? Already? You guess you'll find out soon enough.

* * *

You see another sixteen or so pawns milling around in here. These ones have uniforms just like those of you and your unit. They must be in the same boat as you, metaphorically speaking.

There's no commanding officer around, so your unit breaks formation. No sense in standing at attention when there's no one there. Especially when your unit can get back into formation at the drop of a hat.

The room has an effective width of about twenty paces, with a ceiling just as high. The side walls are each made of a lower part and an upper part, forming an incomplete triangle on the inside of the room. In these indentations you see a number of white hammocks, accessible by ladders fixed to the walls. You climb up and give one of them a feel. It feels soft, like cloth or something.

You climb back down. Maybe you'll introduce yourself to some of the other pawns, now that you have a free moment with them. You realize that there are now thirty-one others, instead of just fifteen. You've got a lot of ground to cover if you want to meet them all.

You notice that two of the pawns from the other unit are holding some sort of thin device between them. You get a closer look. One of the pawns seems to be writing something on it. He hands it to the other, who nods vigorously, writes something on it, and hands it back. This is very curious. You approach the two, and tap the first one on the shoulder. You gesture to the device, and raise your arms in question. What is it?

The pawn writes something on it, then shows it to you. The pawn wrote hello. He explains the device is something called a writing tablet. He says it's a very convenient way to talk to one another. He asks you if you want to try it.

You take the tablet from him. It's roughly rectangular, but has an L-shaped piece missing from one corner. The border is purple, and there's a white rectangle in the middle, where the words show up. The white rectangle has a similar piece missing, such that the border is of uniform width. You wonder why they couldn't have just made the whole thing rectangular.

You make a little scratch within the white rectangle with your index claw to test it. Instead of damaging the tablet, a thin, black line is drawn. It erases the words the other guy had written. You write a message to the other guy. You tell him you are pawn number twenty-three twenty-three, and ask if he wants to be friends. He takes the tablet, reads it, and scratches back a return message.

He tells you he's pawn number twenty-three thirteen. He tells you it's always great to make new friends. You nod your head in agreement. He also tells you he was in the middle of talking to his other friend. He tells you there are more tablets on the rack this way if you want to talk to the others. He even drew a little arrow there to point you in the right direction. How considerate. You hand him his tablet back, and thank him with a nod.

The rack has four more tablets left, and there's an identical rack on the other side of the room with some more. You take one, and start playing around with it to get a feel for the device. You discover a button on the back of the tablet. It doesn't seem to do anything. Maybe you have to write something first. You test it out by sketching a little pentagon with a king's seal on it. The tablet responds well to your claw. Thin lines are traced on its surface as your claw glides over it. You test the button again. As you thought, the button can be used to clear everything on the tablet. But it seems like if another pawn starts writing on it, your own writing will be cleared all on its own. That's what you gather from your communication with number 2313, anyway.

This thing is so cool! You've got to show your friend! You easily pick him out from the group. You say check out what you found. He reads the message, and his eyes widen. They were already pretty wide to begin with. You ask him if he wants to try. He nods enthusiastically. You give him the tablet. He etches something into it, and he looks surprised to find your words being erased before his eyes. He keeps writing, and turns the tablet to show you. He says it's so great to finally be able to talk properly with words and-! He fumbles and drops the tablet on the ground. He seems very distraught by this. He clenches his claws, and starts drubbing the sides of his head with the sides of his fists. Left fist, right fist, left fist, right fist, left, right, left, et cetera.

What if he broke it? He would almost certainly be punished for it. He might be flogged or demoted or imprisoned or- Oh would you look at that it's perfectly fine. Looks like they built these things for durability. Your friend's still drubbing away at his noggin, though. You try to snap him out of it. You tap the top of his head with the claw that isn't currently holding the tablet. Pap. Pap. Pap pap. The drubbing is as persistent as ever. Drub-Drub. Drub-Drub.

You start papping a little harder in an attempt to get through to him. Pap-pap-pap. PAPAPAPAPAPAPAP. Your poor friend is nearly throwing a fit. If his pawn arms were a little stronger, he might be in danger of hurting himself. DRUBDRUBDRUBDRUBDRUB.

A high-pitched whistle rings out. Oh, great. Now you're both going to get in trouble because it looks like you're fighting! Way to go, number… wait. You don't actually know your friend's name yet. You'll ask him next time.

It becomes clear that no one around you actually cares about your wacky antics. The captain was just blowing his whistle to announce his presence, and call you all to attention; he didn't even notice the two of you. You two stop your tomfoolery and give the captain your undivided attention.

The captain is wearing the coolest hat you've seen so far. Same color scheme as yours, except it's much bigger, and has three distinct corners. He takes out a writing tablet from the folds of his uniform. You wonder how he's going to get everyone to- He blows his whistle again. He points to the starboard wall of the room. Everyone turns to look. Red writing begins to appear gradually on the wall, letter by letter, as the captain writes. His handwriting is neat and refined, as if he's been writing in this manner all his life.

He says welcome to the ship. Ship? Like a boat of sorts, then. You know exactly what that is. He says you'll all be leaving for the Battlefield shortly. He says he's noticed you have started making use of the writing tablets on the ship. He says that is good, and it is important to make friends and build camaraderie amongst yourselves. To have people you can trust at your back. He requests, however, that you put his tablets back before you leave. They must all stay on the ship. He says you will find others like them in your quarters, as well as in any Derse camp or building on the Battlefield. That brings him to his next point.

He draws a large arrow. On the wall, it points to an array of long chests. He explains that in each of these chests is a long cable. When you enter Skaia, you will need to tie each of the cables securely to eight iron rings in the floor near the hatch. When he's flown in close enough to the Battlefield, the hatch will fly open, and you will all need to rappel down to the ground. He clears his tablet again, and draws a diagram. A picture of the ship, labeled "Ship." A picture of the Battlefield ground, labeled "Ground". A rappelling cable, and a string of pawns sliding down it. He then writes that you'll all do great.

The captain informs you all that it will take about nine hours to reach Skaia once the ship sets off, and advises you to get eight hours of rest before then. He then tells you all to be "as you were," and leaves for the cockpit. The red lights fade from the wall.

You are just so excited, you can hardly contain yourself.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Jump

You turn back to your friend after the captain has left the room. Looks like the unexpected presence of authority snapped him right out of it. You show him that the tablet's completely unharmed. He breathes a sigh of relief. The fall pressed the "clear" button, so whatever was on it is now gone. You offer him the tablet back, but he shakes his head.

You hear a low rumble coming from the back room. It seems to spread through the floor and walls, until the whole ship is vibrating with a low, quiet rumble. You feel the ship start to accelerate. You lean against the moderate force that's trying to push you to the floor. The ship must be turning now, because the direction you have to lean in starts to change gradually. After about a minute or so, the engine cuts, and you stop having to lean.

A red digital display flickers on above the door to the captain's room to the front of the ship. It displays 00:00:00 for a few seconds. It then switches to 09:00:00. Then 08:59:59. Then 08:59:58. 08:59:57. 56. 55. 54. 53. It must be the countdown to Skaia.

Every second, the display ticks down by one second. It does this with astounding regularity. It never misses a tick, or is ever early or late with one. Not once. It does its job quite well, you think. 38. 37. 36. 35. 34. When the last number reaches zero, the second number changes from 59 to 58. When that one reaches zero, you suppose the first number will change from 8 to 7. It really is quite an orderly system.

Your display-beholding is interrupted by a black claw waving over your line of sight. You've only been zoned out for about a minute (or, according to the display, exactly one minute), but your friend has decided to snap you out of it. He looks a bit worried. On second thought, you don't think you've ever seen him not looking worried.

You dismiss his concern with a wave. You write to him you're fine. You say you're feeling a little tired, though, so you think you'll get some shut-eye. He nods in understanding. You clear the tablet, place it back on its rack, and climb into one of the hammocks. It's been a long day, and you're exhausted. You take off your hat and hang it on a nearby hook. You stretch out on the hammock. Lying down is pretty comfortable! It's like sitting, but different.

You ended up sleeping for about eight hours before being woken up by 2313, the guy who showed you the tablet. He thought you'd been sleeping for long enough. You then spent about fifty minutes of the remaining hour just milling around the main area just talking to the others. You met 2319, 2324, and 2333, some of the others from your own unit. You also met 2312, the guy who 2313 was talking to. You'll call them by their last two digits for short. You're all 23's here.

The others were all as clueless as you. 19 says he met 2302, who's supposed to be the first of the pawns in the other unit. 33 says he's the last guy in your unit, since he hasn't heard of a pawn with a higher number than him. He was actually kind of a pompous ass about it, being all "higher" than the rest of you. You wonder if he knew that it meant he was one of the newest guys there was. You must have at least 14 seconds' seniority over him.

Now, the display reads 00:10:08. A buzzer sounds at 00:10:00, and the captain makes another appearance. His words appear on the wall again in the same red lights. He says you have almost reached the battlefield. He hopes you have all gotten enough rest, because the first day will be the hardest. He says that when the display reaches 00:00:00, the door will open, and you had better have the cables tied by then.

He has some final words of advice for you all before you are plunged heads first into the raging battle. Watch each other's backs. If you don't stick together, you'll all be vulnerable. Your orders are to make your way to the Derse castle at the first lull in the battle. All new pawns have to report there after landing. Get there alive at the first opportunity. Farewell.

* * *

The captain goes back to his quarters. You decide to look in one of the chests for the cable he mentioned earlier. You find one, but you need the help of a friend to lift it out and carry it to the other side of the room near the iron rings. You loop one end of the cable through the ring, and tie it tight. You and four others pull on it as hard as you can to test its strength. It's very strong for its size. Pretty soon, all the cables are tied securely to the rings.

Eight cables. Eight rings. Thirty-two pawns. Two minutes. The red display ticks down inexorably to the moment when the hatch will open. The moment you start serving your country. The moment your life really begins.

Thirty seconds. You begin to hear the clash of metal on metal. You grip the length of cable tightly.

Ten seconds. Nine seconds. Eight seconds. Seven. Six. Five. The top of the hatch begins to open. An odd sort of light peers in through the ever-widening crack.

Four seconds. It begins to dawn on you that you will very shortly be jumping out of a low-flying aircraft. You wonder what the experience will be like.

One second. The hatch is almost fully open; the last of it starts to sink down into the ship's hull. You grip your cable tightly.

You jump out of the low-flying aircraft, gripping onto the cable for dear life. You slacken your grip just a little bit. Your smooth, carapaced claw slides over the cable, and you descend at a rate of about four paces per second. Your entire body is buffeted by an overwhelming force, like a constant rush of cool air. It threatens to steal away your hat. You manage to keep it on your head through sheer force of will.

The landscape underneath you is really quite impressive. And by impressive, you guess you mean flat, regular and featureless, but also really really big. Alternating black and white acres as far as the eye can see. Little irregular patches of green mar the landscape's natural order in random areas.

You slacken your grip a little more, and start to descend a little faster. You're lucky you have such a smooth carapace. If there was a little more friction, you fear you would be in danger of starting a **cable fire**.

You see the others on different cables above you. One of them is your nameless friend. He is clutching his cable with both claws for dear life. His body is horizontal, and his legs are all askew. Your eyes meet for a split second. Dammit, man! This is no time to be fooling around!

You are nearly at the end of the cable, but luckily the ground is almost right underneath you, and getting bigger by the second. You grip the cable more tightly to slow your descent, and slide off the end. You fall about a pace and a half down onto hard white soil. Your friend lands in a patch of green maybe a dozen paces away. One by one, the others all land, safe and sound.

You're on your back, where you landed. You can't get up. You're stunned. Above you is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. It's not even really a thing that's there.

It's the most magnificent shade of blue. Like those dock pawns' outfits, sort of partway between blue and white. It's so much more profound than any piece of cloth could ever hope to show.

It's sort of like a really, really high ceiling, except in a room with no walls. It sort of reminds you of when you couldn't see the far wall in the docks area. But that was deep black, and made you feel really small. This made you feel small, too. But safe, and peaceful. Like you're so small, nothing bad can ever see you or hurt you.

And you can see other things up there, too! Brilliant, white, fluffy things, drifting across the big blue expanse. They're sort of a contrast to the blue; they give you something to compare it to.

It quite reminds you of that picture of "Skaia" that you were shown yesterday. It makes sense, since you must be inside the big blue sphere, looking out at it, and that's what you're seeing. You just didn't think it would be so **big**!

One of the other pawns interrupts your gaze. He helps you to your feet, and points behind you.

About fifty paces away, you see a large group of black and white figures fighting. One of them, a black one, stands above them, nearly twice as tall as the second-tallest there. In his right hand is something that might be a scepter, though it's hard to tell from a distance.

You go over to your friend, who is laying on his front in the tall grass, arms stretched outwards. He looks so peaceful; you'd think he was sleeping. You shake him awake, and point him in the direction of the warring figures. He looks a little more unsettled than usual by this, and his hand goes to his lance.

Your group gathers together, and you all go off in the direction of the figures.

* * *

As your group gets closer, it becomes clear that most of the fighting actually occurs on an imaginary line between the Prospit and Derse forces. To your left, the white army stretches out several scores of paces. To your right, your Dersite comrades hold back the tide. Your king stands just behind the front line, no doubt issuing kingly commands.

You draw your sword. The time for battle is almost here. You see scores of white pawns, most of them locked in deadly combat with black pawns. A few rooks on each side, spread out over the front line, are dealing massive damage to any opposing pawns that get in their way.

Number 33 in front of you decides to lead the charge. He runs forward, holding out his lance. You and the others follow behind, one foot after the other in rapid succession.

Your group takes the Prospitians by surprise. With their right flank mostly unguarded, many of them are cut down before they can assume a defensive position. When they do, the imaginary line has a little perpendicular hook on one end. New white pawns came to defend against your group and the existing Derse forces.

Personally, you still haven't gotten any action yet because you are still a ways behind the first line of infantry, in the second line of infantry. Number 33 spars with a white pawn to his right diagonal. You silently root for him. The white pawn appears to be losing, with his sword pushed back very close to his body. Suddenly, the white pawn sidesteps a little, and 33 loses his balance! He stumbles forward, where the white pawn had just stood, and is slashed in the back by his opponent's sword. He falls to the ground, and is killed where he lies, spear still in hand.

A fountain of rage wells up in you, spouting its egregious hate-water. It was a trick! A dirty trick! He pretended to be losing, then stepped out of the way and tripped 33 up! And then he killed him! You've never seen something so dastardly or despicable! You charge forward, and swing your sword to the right, meeting that of 33's killer. You lock swords and eyes in one fiery second of mutual animosity. Your opponent pulls his sword away, and makes a quick swing at your side. You block it with some difficulty.

You stay on the defensive as your foe comes at you again and again with a series of light, quick swings. You block each one, waiting for just the right moment to strike. In your solid defense, you lose a pace or two of ground.

Your enemy brings his sword back and swings it over his head with both hands. You step a little to the left, and bring your own sword high in front of you, angling it downwards to your right. Your enemy's sword meets yours, and slides down the length of your blade. He stumbles forward and falls on his left side. He was expecting you to try and block the blow outright. Somehow, you knew better.

You step away from your fallen foe, just in case he tries anything trickstery. Panicked, he grips his sword tightly, turns back to face you, and picks himself up, sword pointed right at you. You swing your sword at his with all the force you can muster. It flies out of his grip, and lands a few paces away. He moves for it, but you knock him to the ground.

Your enemy sits before you on the white dirt, supported by both arms behind him. This is it. This is the scum that killed 33 with a dirty trick before your very eyes. You didn't know him for very long, and he came off as a little arrogant, but no one deserves to be killed by a silly trick like that!

You stare into your enemy's eyes, and see nothing but fear. This is a pawn just like you. He probably came from a facility just like yours. Rappelled down from a ship just like you did. He may have only recently got here, just like you did. A pawn just like you, but on the other side of the war. You hesitate for one second as you take it all in.

If you don't kill this pawn, he'll go on to kill more of your comrades. If you don't kill this pawn, you will have betrayed your country, having let one of its enemies live on the field of battle. If you don't kill this pawn, someone else will. No turning back now. 33 must be avenged.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

March to Derse Castle

The battle dies down pretty quickly after that. The white forces quickly realise that your unit's arrival leaves them heavily outnumbered. Their commander issues the order to retreat. A loud horn on their side produces two long blasts, and all the fighting stops. The Prospitian forces march off in the opposite direction. Horns blow in victory on the Derse side.

You blink repeatedly. You recoil in horror as the realisation hits you. You let go of your sword and fall backwards onto the ground. Why is your sword sticking out of that pawn's chest? You were standing just a few feet away… you saw 33 fighting that pawn… oh dear.

It all comes back to you. Engaging the enemy, struggling against him, instinctively parrying his last blow…

You thrust your sword downward as hard as you could. You felt resistance as his carapaced chest was broken with a sickening crack. You saw the agony in your enemy's eyes. Saw his pretty yellow-and-blue uniform develop a deep red stain, spreading outward from where you ran him through. His jaw slackened, and blood seeped out. It stained his flawless white carapaced face and neck. After that, you must've zoned out. You were snapped out of it by the sudden sound of horns. You hadn't moved a muscle for a good half minute.

Your friend walks up from behind you, and turns to look down at you. His eyes hold the same weary stare they've always had. Even when you first met him. He moves to retrieve your sword for you. He looks down at the pawn's corpse, and the large pool of red around it. He shudders, and turns away, instead fetching the white pawn's sword. He pulls you to your feet and hands you the sword, handle-first.

You feel a pang of sickness well up in your stomach. You decide to just focus on what to do next.

You and your friend approach one of the Derse bannerpawns. Just as you're figuring out how to charade 'Derse Castle,' he pulls out a portable writing tablet from one of his uniform's larger pockets. He asks if you're part of the new unit. You both nod vigorously. He changes his words for a moment, then points behind him. He says Derse Castle is just on the other side of that edge over there. You can't miss it once you pass over the edge on that side. You both salute him. He salutes back, and then carries on about his business.

Most of the Derse forces are resting where they were, so the line is still very much there; you're facing it from one end. To the left, you see the white forces still retreating, but they're going to go over the edge pretty soon. It's the edge opposite where the bannerpawn told you to go. You keep right, and start walking down the line of troops.

You actually may have overestimated the numbers on your side. There can't have been more than a hundred troops on either side. You see some of the archer pawns, separate from the main congregation. They didn't fire any shots at the retreating forces. That just wouldn't have been fair.

You pass by your king about twenty paces behind the main line, and at about the middle of it lengthwise. He's a lot shorter now, only about half a pace taller than you. He must be in his natural form because he's not in battle. You bow to him briefly, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's a busy guy.

When you reach the end of the line, you see some pawns from your unit and the other unit standing as their own group. Some of them beckon at you and your friend to hurry up. You jog over there to join them.

That's odd. You could've sworn that there were more of you before. You're only counting about twenty. You see 13, but not his buddy, 12. 13 looks really sad. He is also holding two spears, one in its shortened state. You feel sad, too. 12 was a pretty cool guy. Those no-good, cheating Prospitians!

Your group waits around for a minute or so for others. Four more from your group join you. Once everyone's satisfied that you're all accounted for, the twenty-five of you march off in the direction of Derse Castle.

* * *

As you walk on the right side of the formation, you find yourself never looking away from the beautiful big blue. Sky. You're pretty sure that's what it's called. Like Skaia. What lovely-sounding words. Your legs walk by themselves as your mind wanders into that magnificent blue vastness.

The smaller-but-still-pretty-big-looking white things look different from last time. Clouds. That's what they're called. They look like they're always moving. But not moving with any real speed or purpose. They're just milling along; drifting lazily across the sky. You don't think you'd mind doing that for a little while.

Their easygoing nature, their random shapes and sizes, their brilliant white hue…

The color brings back a memory. The memory hurts, so you try to push it back down. It's no use- you can't get the image out of your head. The flawless white, sitting all pretty. But then the red! The awful red, how it comes up and keeps coming and gets bigger!

You look back up at the clouds, and tell yourself that there's no red anymore. That it's okay. But it's not okay! The clouds are gonna get poisoned by that terrible red, too! You just know it! It's only a matter of time.

You are shaken on the shoulder by your friend beside you. You snap out of it. It looks like you're about to step over the edge onto the side of the world with Derse Castle on it. You're not sure how the falling works here, but you're pretty sure that you should focus when stepping over a ninety degree edge of the world.

Oh, would you look at that, there's really nothing to it. Kind of like stepping up a step in a flight of stairs. Or down a step. Or both at once. A little bit weird, actually. But not too hard to do, since your group is still walking in formation without even breaking step.

It strikes you a little funny that what's down to you now was backwards when you were on the other face of the world. And what was forwards then is straight up now. You try not to think about it too much. It's just how the world works, you think.

The first thing you notice about the land before you is a big, shimmering dome enveloping about two-thirds of the current face. The dome appears to be made of translucent purple. You're pretty sure things can be made of colors. Just look at the sky! If that thing's not made of the purest blue in all the land, you don't know what is!

In the middle of this area – the middle of this face of the world – lies Derse Castle. You think that's what it must be; it's the only castle around. You can't get a very good look at it from this distance, though.

Forty-five paces later, the first of your group passes through the purple. You guess it must be just one of those things you can pass through. You walk right through it, and nothing happens. You can't see the upper part dome from inside it, though. That would be a little weird, having this big purple dome over you all the time. You're pretty sure it's still there, though. You can see the first few feet of it sticking up from the ground on all sides.

The landscape around you is breathtaking! Pristine, flat, black-and-white checkerboard as far as the eye can see! Each square is of side length ten paces. You see no real difference in texture between the black dirt and the white dirt. Indeed, the grass grows in large irregular patches, indiscriminate of soil type. Shallow streams of clear blue water run independently of any geographical height features. The liquid stays in set streams, as if by magic. Your group steps through one on the way to the castle. You feel the cool water cling to your feet, then run off within a few steps.

Your unit passes by a farm. The farmhouse is shaped like a cylinder on its side, but some of it is buried in the ground, so it doesn't roll away. There's a little solid purple flag coming from behind the roof on one side. It's also got a rectangular awning along the length of it, with a long window underneath. The house is only about six paces long, and half as wide.

The farmer steps out of the farmhouse, and waves at your unit. He's dressed in all green, and his hat looks like it's a part of the rest of his clothes. Actually, it looks more like a hood than a hat. Farmhouses like these are dotted about the area inside the dome, spaced pretty far apart.

You're about seventy paces from the base of the castle now. The castle is mostly black, with black and white checkerboard on the roof, tower, and foundation. It's quite an epic sight; black silhouette against big, fluffy white clouds. A single, dignified purple flag flies atop the tower. The kind that's pointed at the end; not the rectangle-y kind.

As you get closer, you realise that it's not a very big castle at all, only about sixty paces square. It goes up about fifty paces or so into the air, not including the tower, so you figure it makes efficient use of space. You were expecting something a bit bigger, though.

Your group climbs up the stairs to the tall doorway. The big double doors are wide open, so you all walk right in.

* * *

The castle's interior is a little different to its exterior. Grey and light grey tiles, half a pace square, cover the entire floor. The same pattern covers the walls, but with all tiles a little bit darker. The side walls are covered with purple flags and banners carrying the emblem of Derse; the same black pentagon with a white king's seal.

Across the room from you is a long wooden desk. On either side of the desk is an impressive marble staircase. The one on the left leads upwards, and the one on the right leads downwards. Downwards? You guess there's more to this castle than you originally thought.

In the center of the foyer lies what you assume is a model of the Incipisphere. The beautiful blue Skaia in the middle. The golden planet Prospit orbiting nearby. Four other planets which you have never seen or heard of before. A belt of asteroids farther away. And the purple planet Derse, just outside the asteroid belt.

Your group approaches the desk. One of the pawns at the desk takes notice of your group, and writes something on a tablet on the desk. The words appear on a window behind him. He asks if you are new pawns. You all nod repeatedly. He says to take the staircase to your right, and await further orders. Your group salutes the pawn behind the desk. He rolls his eyes, and salutes back.

This staircase is easily six paces wide. It goes straight down a few dozen steps, and then flattens out. The next section continues down to the left. It occurs to you that there's no handrail to hold, since you are surrounded by your fellow pawns on all sides. It doesn't bother you; you're able to keep your balance pretty well at speed, even going up or down an incline. You'd never fall over; not unless someone pushed you.

The staircase flattens out, and goes left again. You continue your downward descent, having turned 180 degrees since stepping onto the staircase. You reach the bottom. This part of the castle looks exactly like the facility you first woke up in. The purple metal walls, floor and ceiling, the same large metal doors, the glowing tubes that provide harsh white light; all of it brings back recent memories.

You didn't mind the light before. It used to be good and normal and helped you to see. But when you landed, you saw the gentler kind of light. The sort of light that seemed to come from everywhere; as if from the big blue sphere itself. By comparison, this underground light now seems… cold. Cold and crude.

The captain who greets you is both the burliest and the most terrifying pawn that you have ever seen in your life. Standing a full head taller than any of you, he boasts a terrible white scar over his left eye, and carapaced muscles which gleam in the tube-light. He sizes your unit up with his one good eye, and then spits on the ground beside him.

This is the group they sent to replace his unit? He can hardly believe it. What even are you gourd-munchers, anyway? Two-thousands? He spits again. Of course you are. All the fresh meat is, these days! Sadly, that's just the way things work around here! The problem with you two-thousands is that you're all handle, and no blade!

You have no choice but to weather his stream of hurtful words as they appear in red on the wall behind him. You guess he must be your group's commanding officer, and he doesn't seem too happy about it.

Still, he'll whip you maggots into shape if it's the last thing he does. Maybe the planets will all align and some of you might actually live long enough to be promoted! Yeah, that's right. There's a chance- yes, a very slim chance- that any one of you will get to be a captain someday. You've got to go to the end of the world and back, laugh in the face of danger, and spill a river of enemy blood. But at the end of it all, you will have earned the martial right – nay, the DUTY – to treat lesser pawns like scum. He is pawn number 0848, and you ladies have the privilege of being commanded by such a seasoned fighter.

Welcome to the Battlefield, maggots!


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Waste Several Days on this Tomfoolery

The captain gave you all the mandatory tour of the barracks facility beneath Derse castle. He showed you each room with the enthusiasm and work ethic of someone being forced to dig their own grave on threat of death. He really seemed like he had a hundred other things he'd rather be doing. Still, you now know where to find the mess hall, armory, practice room, and your quarters. You share a large room with all of your current group.

The room consists of sixteen bunk beds, spaced evenly apart, providing sleeping space for thirty-two pawns. Many of them will go un-slept-in tonight. There are trunks at the foot of each lower bunk, presumably for weapons and personal effects. Racks of writing tablets can be found on the wall near the door, but you have been told that they are not to leave the room. There is a little common area in the far corner, with couches and low tables, with space for at least a dozen pawns to relax and converse in their off-duty time.

There are a total of eight "Infantry Quarters" rooms, in groups of four on opposite ends of the facility. You are told that there are also four "Captain's Quarters" rooms, in pairs between the infantry quarters. These rooms are off-limits to any pawn who isn't a captain.

Beyond the row of "quarters" rooms is the kitchen and mess hall, where the meal for each day is prepared and eaten. The pawns who work in the kitchen are all retired from battle duty, and are a little older than you.

To the right of the mess hall is the armory, and to the left of the mess hall is the drill room/practice room. The rooms are all separated by one big hallway, about six paces wide throughout.

Your captain says that you are now free to roam around the facility as you please, as well as anywhere within the safe zone in your free time. Consider this your day off. Do not leave the safe zone without instruction. Do not go to the second floor of the castle without permission. Do not enter a captain's quarters except in the case of dire emergency or when instructed to by a captain. Report to the mess hall in four hours for the evening meal. You are dismissed.

The captain leaves your quarters. Your group breathes a collective sigh of relief. He's a frightening one, that fellow. You and your friend pick out a bunk bed near the middle of the room. He lays his spear down on the bottom bunk, and you toss your sword on the top one. You're finally settled in, and have some free time to yourselves.

Your friend grabs a tablet from the wall without a moment's hesitation and scribbles something down. His name is 2322. What's yours?

For the next several days, your life is to be ruled by two important entities. The first is captain 0848. The second is a red display of numbers, high on the wall in your quarters. It's identical to the display you saw in the ship, except these numbers count up instead of down. Additionally, this display has an extra number on the far left, representing the largest increment of time the display measures. The number is currently at 0107. You are told that this is the number of days since the display started. This sort of upward-counting display is called a clock. It displays time in 24-hour mode. You prefer to use 12-hour mode when you can. It's less numbers to deal with.

There is a plainly visible clock in each room of the castle. All the clocks are in sync with each other. You know this because you took note of the time at 18:59:07 in your room before you walked over to the mess hall. You counted in your head that it took you 31 seconds to get there, and the clock on the wall in that room read 18:59:38.

Your life is controlled by a schedule starting from the morning after your arrival. The wake-up buzzer sounds at 06:00:00. You have fifteen minutes to shake the sleep from your eyes and make your way to the foyer upstairs to meet the captain and the rest of your group for the morning run.

The captain leads your group in a single-file jog in a square around the castle. You meet the edges of the safe zone numerous times, but you never leave it. It's really quite a monotonous run.

You're glad to be outside. The morning light is gentle, and the wind rushes at you, filling your lungs with its cool, clear air.

You pass by a stream of running water. Its subtle, repeating noise is a refreshing change in pace from the blaring buzzers and hum of light-tubes that you've grown so accustomed to.

After about an hour of jogging, the captain dismisses you for a half-hour break. The first thing you do is go down to the mess hall for a long drink of water. You can feel your heart beating in your chest, and your legs feel like they're on fire. You fill a bottle with cold water from a dispenser, and take a great swig.

You spend the rest of your break in your quarters, talking to the other pawns in your group. 13 seems a lot less sad than he was yesterday. There's a smile on his face and a tablet in his hand. He talked to some of the pawns from the other units last night before lights out, and you wouldn't believe some of the rumors that've been going around about the captain!

Number 2138 told him that since 0848 is one of the hundreds, he was on the battlefield in its first months of awakening. More than a thousand pawns have lived and died since he got here! That would have to make him a lot older than any of you. But how old is he, really? No one seems to know.

2109 apparently knew some of the pawns from 0848's old unit; a group of thousands. That unit was still 28 members strong with several successful missions under their belt. That kind of survival rating among pawns is almost unheard of!

He says they were all wiped out in one epic assault on the white king less than a week ago. 0848 and his unit lead many other units into the largest battle the White King's Haunt had ever seen.

Now, here's where the story gets really interesting. Apparently, after his entire unit was killed, captain 0848 had somehow snagged the scepter right out of the White King's hand. This forced the king into his true form- a guy not much taller than your average pawn. The captain then used his own severed arm to beat the enemy king into submission. The story gets less clear and more absurd from there, and it's never actually mentioned how he escapes with his life, having failed to kill the white king.

You're not sure you believe that last part of the story. But from the look on 13's face, you'd think it was the truest thing of all the things that were ever true.

After the break, you all have to report to the practice room for drill training. It is now 8 o' clock. A rectangular formation of evenly spaced practice dummies occupies this room's main lower level. A few steps up on the far end provide access to a raised platform that runs across the width of the room. On the left end of this platform is some sort of terminal with switches and buttons.

Captain 0848 is standing at this terminal. He orders you all to stand beside a dummy and ready your weapons. You will hear a sound of one pitch. This sound represents the first combat technique that you will learn. His red text fades from the wall, and is replaced by two displays of pawns beside dummies. The pawn on the left has a sword, and the pawn on the right has a spear.

When the sound is heard, the pawn on the left swings his sword horizontally from right to left, and the pawn on the right swings the sharp end of his spear in a similar fashion. A buzzer sounds. The captain says it's your turn. BEEP! The note sounds again. You swing your sword at the dummy from right to left. Everyone else hits their dummies as they were shown on the display. A single THWACK is heard.

The note sounds three distinct times. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! THWACK, THWACK, THWACK! The captain says you all did well, and tells you that you'll hear a different sound. This sound is similar to the sound before, but it is a little higher in pitch. The pawns on the screen swing their weapons from left to right this time. The buzzer sounds again. You hear the new note three times in succession. THWACK, THWACK, THWACK! You hear the first note, then the second, then the first again. THWACK, THWACK, THWACK!

In this way, twelve distinct combat techniques are introduced, and are numbered one through twelve. Number three is a forward lunge. Number five is an overhead swing for sword users, and a strike with the butt of the pole for spear users. Number nine is a defensive shunt with the length of a spear, or just a regular forehand strike with a sword. There are quite a lot of techniques and moves, but you think you have the hang of it after a while.

After a grueling two hours of drill training, you are allowed a measly ten minute break for water and rest. After that, you must return to finish the second half of drill training.

When the clock strikes twelve, the captain blows his whistle to release you. You and a few others fall to your knees. You're just so tired. After the first half hour of each two-hour segment, your mind just shut down and your body took over. It was about as dull as counting out a thousand grains of rice one by one. Now, it feels like your mind is back in control, and your body is unresponsive. All you can do is take deep breaths and stare at the dull purple floor.

Before anyone leaves, the captain writes that he would like to see pawns 2322 and 2330 in the armory right away. That is all.

You're now on a two-hour break. According to your schedule, your group has sparring practice at two o' clock in the practice room. You guess that means you'll practice fighting each other?

Whatever. You're too tired to think about such things right now. You stow your sword inside the chest at the foot of your bed, climb up to your bunk, and lay on your back, just to regain your strength.

The fluorescent light on the ceiling above isn't particularly bright. But it's bright enough for the light to travel down the five paces to hit you square in the eyes. You flip your collar cloth up so it covers most of your face. Much better. Maybe you'll just rest your eyes for a moment, too.

You're not sure whether or not you slept, but now you're being nudged in the arm. It's 22, and he's got a fancy new banner that he's prodding you with. It's only ten past twelve. He didn't think you'd want to end up sleeping your break away. He also wanted to show you his cool new banner.

The tablet he's writing on has a red border, instead of the usual purple. You ask him why that is. He says it's his official bannerpawn's portable tablet. He gets to carry it with him everywhere he goes because he has a very important job of communicating messages on the battlefield. He says he doesn't know if the captain meant "battlefield" as in the place where all the fighting happens, or "battlefield" as in the whole planet that you're all on.

You blink at him a few times as you process what he just said. What's this about bannerpawns and messages and tablets?

He explains that he and 30 were chosen to be the bannerpawns for this group. He traded in his spear for a banner. The banner is on a long pole, a little longer than his old spear. The bottom of the pole is sharp, so it can be stuck in the soil or used as a weapon. The banner itself is the same purple striped vertical flag with the Derse emblem that you've seen a thousand times before. The only thing that sort of sucks about his banner is that it's not retractable like the spears.

He also got a horn for blowing. But he's not supposed to blow it inside, or at any time at all unless specifically instructed to by a superior. What a dumb rule.

Anyway, the two of you have this pretty long break to spend doing whatever you feel like! 22 asks you for any ideas. You say you wouldn't mind going outside for some fresh air. He's inclined to agree. He leaves his banner just lying on his lower bunk. It won't fit in the chest.

The two of you pass the captain in the foyer on your way out. He's at the front desk, angrily scribbling something to one of the pawns behind it. You wonder what he's so worked up about. The pawn he's dealing with seems sort of terrified. You think it best to forget about it and move on.

You and 22 exit the castle through the tall, ever-open double door. Your eyes adjust to the moderate midday light. 22 blinks repeatedly, and squints a little, but is soon comfortable in the daylight. He asks you now what. You say you're on break; you gotta find a spot to rest!

22 points to a large grassy patch not too far from the stairs to the castle. He beckons you to come with him, and runs off. You cross the outdoor platform, jog down the stairs, and run after him.

He dives into the shallow grass, face-down, and takes a deep breath. He looks completely at peace. What a peculiar pawn. You shake your head, and lie on your back a few paces away from him. To be fair, the grass _is_ awfully soft. 22 had the right idea. His landing must've been pretty easy if the grass over there is the same as the grass over here.

The grass is long enough to bury most of your head in, but not so long that you get lost in it. It's a few shades lighter than the green on your uniform. It's really comfortable and nice and oh god damn it, 22, stop eating that! He's laying on his front, propped up on his arms and is currently attempting to ingest a clump of many blades of the soft green. You slap him upside his head. Stop eating the nature! He flips over onto his back and swallows his turf-top in a dignified manner.

As far as you can tell, the two of you have got it made! A couple of best friends, just settled into a new life! You lie back on the grass and put your arms behind your head. You gaze into the sky and forget all of your troubles. Oh, silly you. You haven't got any!

You're just like one of those clouds up there. They don't think at all about where they're going, what they're doing or how they're getting there. They just go where the gentle breeze takes them. You hope the breeze will blow you along the same path as 22. You think the journey would be a little lonely without a friend. You breathe deeply, and exhale. You feel like you could just lie here forever.

After a minute or two, 22 suddenly sits up and takes out his tablet. He has an idea. The two of you should go visit that farmer you saw on the way to the castle yesterday! He seemed like a pretty cool guy. You wonder how different his life is, being a farmer and all.

The two of you make your way to the farmhouse. It looks like a little dot from this distance. Along the way, 22 notices that his tablet has a built-in clock in the top-left corner of the display. The current time is 12:28. You've got about an hour and a half to spare. You do hope it's alright to drop by unannounced. It doesn't look like the farmer gets much company. You wonder if he likes it that way.

It takes you less than a minute to walk the 68 paces from the grassy patch near the castle to the small farm. The first thing that strikes you as odd about it is the presence of a training dummy just sticking out of the dirt. It's not a full training dummy, mind you. In fact, it looks to be nothing more than a cross made of two staves and some rags, with a big tin can where the head should be. It looks like it would fall apart as soon as you started hitting it!

The crops here grow in rows. Most of them resemble grass. Big orange gourds occupy two of the rows. The crop rows are in two main areas, with a narrow gap between them forming a pathway to the farmhouse door.

The farmer is resting in a chair beneath an awning that juts out from the longest side of the farmhouse. The awning looks like it can fold down to cover up a long window on the side of the house. In the windowsill are several green potted plants. The farmhouse itself is tiny; only about six by three paces!

The farmer wasn't expecting company, and he looks worried for a moment. He is relieved to hear that you're only here to visit during your break. He thought he may have been in some kind of trouble.

You introduce yourselves as 2322 and 2323 using 22's tablet. You're not sure if the farmer even has a tablet of his own. He introduces himself as number 1836. He would invite you inside, but it's a little small, and cluttered with belongings, anyway. You and 22 opt to sit on the ground in the shade of the awning.

Group conversations using a single tablet are tricky. For them to work, everyone needs to be really patient and nice, waiting for their turn to speak while letting the others take theirs. But you're all moderately civilised pawns, and the tablet gets passed from the farmer to the two of you as a pair, and then back to him.

In this way, you spend the next hour or so really getting to know your new mutual friend 1836. Apparently he's called a villein. A free pawn under the rule of a lord or king. In exchange for his home, land and exemption from military service, he works the soil tirelessly to provide food for pawns like you. He's allowed to keep a certain amount of his produce to eat, but most of it gets carried away to the castle and eaten by soldiers like you. Such is the agreement he has with the kingdom. All of the other farms in the region are run by pawns just like him.

At one point, 22 asked him about the crops he grows. Most of it is the green, grassy-looking stuff in his fields. That's the wheat. That current crop is about two days old. In another two days, it will turn golden-brown and be harvested. He mills the grain himself and puts it into sacks, and it gets baked into the ration bread that you get back at the castle.

You asked him if he was ever a soldier like you. He said he was once. But he resigned from active duty and became a villein a few weeks ago. His life as a soldier ended the moment he donned his green hooded robe. But he doesn't like to talk about his days before that moment. Pawns change on the battlefield.

There's a long silence. You and 22 are left holding the tablet, unsure of what to say next. 1836 rocks back in his chair, eyes fixed on some point off in the distance. Facing the edge of the world, there is nothing but the flat, featureless landscape after the rows of crops. It gives way to the endless blue expanse of the horizon. Following the farmer's gaze, you are overcome with a sudden feeling of desolation. Your current view shows you a single white cloud, drifting across the sky beyond the edge.

You find yourself in a state of deep thought. You ask 1836 what he thinks of all the fighting. Upon reading your words, he spits on the ground beside him. He scribbles a response in a perturbed manner. It's pointless. All of it. He wants to ask you and 22 a question. Look around you. Look at the land and the sky and the grass and the clouds and the streams. Do you hate what you see? Does the very sight make you sick to your stomachs? You look at each other, and shake your heads. The farmer spits again, having failed to get the foul taste out of his mouth the first time.

The armies of light and darkness must battle to determine the fate of Skaia… how stupid! Not even the fresh-off-the-boat pawns of the army of darkness want to destroy Skaia. How could they? How could any creature alive want to interfere with all of this? It's the best home he has ever had.

You're not entirely sure about the meaning of the word "treason," but you're pretty sure that this would count as it. Still, you and your friend find nothing wrong with what 36 is saying, so you don't think you'll tell anyone about this part of the conversation back at the castle.

It is around then that 22 notices that it's almost 1:30 and the two of you should be heading back. The farmer thanks you for stopping by, and hopes that you'll come to visit again soon. It's not very often that he gets company, and he's touched that the two of you would take time out of your break to come and visit.

On the way back to the castle, you and 22 try your hardest not to talk about the things 36 mentioned at the end. They could get you into a lot of trouble. It's the ultimate goal of your kingdom to destroy Skaia. And that means that every order that you are given helps in some way to achieve that goal. And you have to obey orders! So that means you'd better start getting used to the idea of destroying Skaia!

You summon up all the rage that you can muster. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr! You HATE Skaia! ! You put on your most menacing glare. An ogle of sheer hatred and disgust! You hear me, Skaia? I HATE you! You try to picture a beam of sheer malice erupting from your eyes. You direct your imaginary rage-beam skyward.

…It doesn't work. No matter how hard you try, you can't bring yourself to feel even the slightest smidge of hatred toward either the beautiful sky or the flawless land underneath.

22 is giving you another one of his peculiar looks. This one seems to say, "Why are you glaring at the sky?" You start to feel rather silly. You shake your head, and focus your gaze back to the castle.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

(Next)

Back in your quarters, you retrieve your sword from the chest at the foot of your bed. 22 gets his bannerspear from his lower bunk. On your way out, you are stopped by 13. He asks you what you are doing. Didn't you get the captain's message? You are confused. Apparently, the captain came in during the break and told everyone to leave their weapons in their quarters for combat practice today.

You're pretty sure that 13 is just trying to get your goat. How are you supposed to have combat practice without your weapons? 13 doesn't know, the captain didn't mention that part. He and the others are all leaving their weapons behind, so you guess you should, too.

The three of you walk to the practice room together. 13 is surprised to find out that the two of you spent your break outside. The thought had never occurred to him before. He always spent his breaks chatting and gossiping with the others in the quarters. What is there for a pawn to do outside the castle?

When you get to the practice room, the captain is waiting for the rest of your unit to arrive. He's at his terminal on the platform at the other end of the room, seated comfortably. All of the dummies that were here this morning are gone now. They were all fixed to the floor; you wonder how they were all moved so quickly.

When the clock strikes two, all twenty-five of you are gathered in the room, so the captain wastes no time in starting the lesson. He detaches a tablet from his terminal and begins to write. He says welcome to combat training. Over the next three hours, you will be sparring against your fellow comrades. Unlike the training dummies, most of them _will_ strike back.

The captain splits the twenty-five of you up into five groups of five. You are put into group two. 22 and 13 are placed into group three.

Now here's how this is going to work. The time spent in this session will be split up into fifteen-minute blocks. There will be five consecutive blocks of sparring, followed by a twenty-five minute break, followed by five more blocks.

When your group is fighting another group, you must select a member of that group to be your sparring partner. Try not to take all day. You and your partner will fight for three minutes, after which a short buzzer will sound, signalling the need for a partner change. This will continue until each pawn from the first group has fought with each pawn from the second group. That will take five three-minute fights for each of you, or fifteen minutes.

The captain will instruct you on what each group is doing at the start of each block. For the first block, group 1 is to fight group 3, and group 2 is to fight group 4. Group 5 is to spectate during this block. Watch and learn, group 5.

You are probably wondering why he has asked you to leave your weapons in your quarters. Well, as much as he would find it hilarious if you all started cutting each other to pieces in his practice room, the war effort needs each and every solider alive and well so that he may serve his kingdom.

The captain will now show you the kind of weapon that you will be using for this lesson. He fidgets with the dials and buttons on his terminal. On the other end of the platform (the right side from your point of view), a red-line-doohickey spins into life with a whirring noise. Red lines come down from the device and focus onto a jet black pedestal beneath it.

The lines rotate around a fixed point, and start to move back and forth, tracing a line onto the pedestal. Their movement becomes faster and more erratic, until the machine stops, and all is quiet again. On the pedestal, you see the outline of a sword, made entirely of red lines of light. It's exactly the same kind of weapon as those used by the ghostly red pawns in the facility where you first woke up.

The captain points at you directly. He needs you for a little demonstration. He tells you to pick up the sword. You step up the two steps onto the platform, and approach the pedestal. What a strange looking sword! Is it even something you can touch and pick up? You nudge it with one hand. It is pushed half an inch forward on its pedestal. You were half-expecting to pass right through it.

You pick it up and hold it out in front of you. Your audience looks amazed. You're pretty amazed, yourself.

The captain tells you good job. Now he wants you to hit him as hard as you can. Give him your best shot. Come at him. You blink repeatedly, confused. You tilt your head to establish confusion. The captain says hurry up now, he hasn't got all day. Hit him!

You shrug your shoulders. You use both hands to make a powerful swing with the sword into the captain's left side. But instead of cutting right through him, he is only knocked to the ground, otherwise perfectly unharmed!

He claims that that didn't hurt a bit! The way these practice weapons work is that they spread the force of the attack out over a larger area than usual. They knock people down without really hurting them, making them ideal for practice battles.

The captain draws a picture of a sword on the left side of the wall, and a picture of a spear on the right side of the wall. He tells the rest of your group to line up in front of him, and point to which one they would like. He will then make one of that weapon, and move on to the next pawn in line.

It only takes a few minutes for every pawn in the room to get a practice sword or spear. At 2:05, the first buzzer sounds. Group 1 versus group 3; group 2 versus group 4. Let's go, everyone!

You grab the first guy from group 4 that you see to be your sparring partner, and find an empty space. He untelescopes his spear. A three-minute countdown timer has already started. You look him in the eyes. He's ready.

You deliver the first blow with great speed, trying to catch your partner off guard. Your sword meets his spear, and little red sparks fly. The length of his spear looks like two three red lines. You smile. You were afraid you would have to hold back. With these weapons, you can hit as hard as you want.

You disengage from the struggle by jumping back a step, sword raised to parry any quick attacks. You dare your opponent to make a move. You're ready to block anything that comes your OOOOOF! His spear comes right at your stomach, ignoring your sword completely. You are shoved to the ground by the impact. It DOES hurt a little bit. Your sword falls to the ground. It clangs audibly on the floor, just as a real one would.

How could you be so STUPID? Of COURSE it's really hard to block a direct thrust like that! You would have been better off preparing to dodge it completely. You could've easily done that if you weren't so intent on blocking the first thing that came at you.

You get up, grateful that this isn't a real battlefield and that you're not dead right now. You pick up your sword and ready yourself. Your partner tries the same move again, thrusting right at your stomach. You jump to the right, out of the way. You hit him in the back, and he falls on his front. He learns that one shouldn't attempt a full-bodied frontal attack if the opponent is ready to dodge it.

He picks up his spear, and you circle each other briefly, eyes locked. You smile. This isn't a real battle. You and your opponent can lose in the exchanges as much as you want.

Your opponent tries a sideways swing with the "sharp" end of his spear. It would slit your throat in a second if it were a real spear. You block it with an equal but opposite swing of your sword. Your weapons clash and repel each other. You swing low, and he blocks easily with a simple tilt of the spear shaft. He counter-attacks by bringing the top end down on your head. It smarts a bit, but you stand your ground.

You stand up straight, and grip your sword in both hands. Only 30 seconds left on the clock. You have to have the upper hand when it strikes zero to win this fight! Your eyes narrow in focus. You get a little closer to your opponent. As a spear user, he has more range than you. Standing far away doesn't help you one bit.

You bring your sword to your right hip with both hands and lunge forward. However, it's easy for a spear to block a forward lunge. He just has to knock your sword to the side as it's coming at him. Confident from his parry, he doesn't see your next move coming. Your sword was deflected to your right, so you draw back quickly and swing it around your head with both hands so that it comes down diagonally from your left. It hits him dead in his right side. He is knocked to the ground. You put the tip of your sword to his chest just for fun. The buzzer sounds.

You put a hand out and help him to his feet. You shake his hand. Good fight, brother! He almost had you.

You go on to spar with the other four members of group 4 in the rest of that 15-minute block. You lose the second and fourth of the five fights. You win another, and the last could only be considered a draw. You think you're doing pretty well so far!

In the next block, group 4 spectates and group 5 joins the rotation, fighting against group 1. Your group therefore fights group 3. You fight 13 first. He's a pretty able fighter; handy with his spear. You both knock each other down twice, and the buzzer sounds with the two of you in an even struggle, sword to spear.

A few fights later, you spar with 22. You knew it would come to this sooner or later. You didn't really know what to expect from him in a fight. You're pretty sure he had only ever fought the red pawns before, and that was only one time.

He was quite timid for the whole three minutes. You're not sure if it was because he lacked confidence or because he was afraid of hurting you. You kept on trying to get a rise out of him. To let him know it's okay to not hold back. You even knocked him down a few times to get him to fight back.

But don't get you wrong. When you finally got him going after the first minute and a half, it was REALLY hard to land a single blow on the guy! His defense was almost impenetrable! You had had your doubts about his fighting ability after having to save his carapace from the red pawns. But after sparring with different pawns for almost half an hour, he really knew how to block! He still didn't knock you down once for that fight, though. You were still trying to get another hit on him when the buzzer sounded. You guess you'll call that one a draw.

The rest of the battles fly by pretty quickly after that. In the next block, group 3 spectates. The block after that, it's your group's turn to spectate. It's now 2:50, and you take a seat near the wall for 15 minutes of rest. You decide to keep your eyes on your friends for this block. Their group is fighting group 5 while group 1 fights group 4. Poor group 1. They've been going this entire time. You're only now realising how tired you are. It's only when you stop that it hits you, you guess.

You've only been going for 45 minutes, but you feel like you've just gone through a two-hour drill session! Mind you, you didn't have to think much in drill sessions. It was mostly just listen and react. It became automatic after a while, and your mind wandered elsewhere.

Here, however, it takes every bit of brainpower you've got to calculate what move you're going to make based on all the moves your opponent could make. Combat training is much harder work than drills because it's like constantly being in real battles. You feel like you need water, but you can wait until the break.

You watch 13 for a bit. He's a pretty good fighter. He uses his spear's range to its full potential by frequently staying out of his sword-wielding partner's modest slashing radius. How aggravating it must be for him. You can see 13 laughing to himself as he dances out of the way once again.

You shift your focus to 22. Yeah, it doesn't look like he's attacked the other guy yet. His spear-wielding partner is giving him what-for in the form of a barrage of lunges and swipes. 22 seems to have blocked every single one of them so far. Oh, wait, no, the other guy got in a lunge! 22 isn't very fast on his feet, and lunges are hard to block. As far as blocking goes, though, he's pretty fantastic. The fight ends without 22 even attempting a single blow. His partner nearly collapses on the ground in exhaustion. Poor guy.

In the fifth block, it's finally group 1's turn to rest/spectate. They've been at it for an hour without stopping. You admire their endurance. The last block in the set goes by uneventfully.

Break time! You spend the next 25 minutes drinking copious amounts of water and congratulating pawns you sparred with on their good fighting skills. You, 13 and some others have a heated debate over whether the sword or the spear is a better weapon overall. It ends in stalemate.

For this series of sparring blocks, the captain wants everyone who was just using a spear to pick up a sword, and everyone who was just using a sword has to pick up a spear. You had all put your swords and spears against opposite walls of the room. There are plenty of spears to go around, but the captain has to make a few more swords, since there weren't enough sword users last time.

You find that fighting with a spear just doesn't grant you the same speed or mobility that you had with a sword. As you expected, spears are a little heavier and trickier to maneuver because they're so long. While you can really appreciate the advantages of spears, you were much more comfortable using a sword.

You spend the next several blocks losing a little more than normal. At least 22 has learned how to try and hit someone. He's still not very good at it, though. He's not as good at blocking with a sword, but he puts up an admirable effort.

Since group 1 was the last to spectate last time, they spectate first this time. You fight the other groups again in reverse order. At least the other pawns are as far gone out of their elements as you are. Everyone had to change their weapons.

The captain really meant it when he said that the practice weapons weren't supposed to leave the practice room. 22 must have forgotten he was holding his sword when he walked through the door. The red weapon started to vibrate violently, then slowly rise up out of his hand. It started to break apart with a fizzling noise; little red cubes coming off of it and fading away into thin air. Within seven seconds, the weapon had fizzled away completely. 22 looked like he was going to drop dead with fear. Luckily for him, the captain didn't seem to care. Just one more he has to make for tomorrow.

After sparring practice comes "Theory" class. Its name is a little vague. It means that the captain's going to teach you all sorts of stuff now. It's five in the afternoon, and 0848 is leading you to the mess hall. Its benches, tables and large walls make it ideal for a lecture.

You arrive at the mess hall. The captain tells you all to sit on the benches facing the wall at the far end of the room. He pulls out a book from one of the pockets of his uniform. It is entitled "A Pawn's Essential Guide to the Battlefield, Volume 2: The Battlefield Cubic." The captain says to take your seats. Theory class is now in session.

* * *

Long, long ago, in a time before any pawn can remember, the two kings were completely alone. The battlefield was only three paces long and three paces wide. The kings looked very different to what they do now. They fought without need for rest or sustenance; their hatred for each other was all they needed to go on.

But the kings were too evenly matched. One could not best the other. And so they waged their long battle. It is not known how long they warred for, because even they do not remember when they began.

One day, one hundred and eight days ago, the towers of Prospit and Derse received their first kernels. And so it was that the battlefield underwent its first change. We know it today as the Battlefield Planar, twelve paces long by twelve paces wide. The kings were separated by the greatest distance possible on the battlefield.

Inside each kernel was the image of a harlequin, and so the kings changed their appearance to suit. Soldiers were sent to the battlefield to do battle in the name of their kings. Their appearances were altered to suit that of their leaders. These first soldiers were known on both sides as the hundreds, and they were numbered from 0500 to 0999. For the first 500 pawns on either side had been living happily on Prospit and Derse, and still do to this day.

The kings and their men battled for ninety days in this fashion, until the towers received their second kernels. The battlefield changed again, into the form that it is today. This is known as the Battlefield Cubic, four hundred and eighty paces long by four hundred and eighty paces wide on each of its six faces.

The second kernels bore the image of a regal feline with two appendages tendrilkind. Only the kings changed their appearances to suit. It was on this ninetieth day that the kings found their royal scepters. They could enter their true forms and walk among their subjects, height and breadth reduced by half.

It is also then that the ground became loose, rendering soil, which became fertile and rendered grass. Streams and pools of cool, clear water sprung up from naught and began to flow. The castles of light and darkness found their foundations on opposite ends of the world, and the bishops erected areas of safety around them, through which no enemy might pass.

It is at this point in the Battlefield's history where soldiers can start living longer lives. The conflict no longer encompasses the whole world, and the nature of war has changed dramatically. There is no longer one big battle, but rather, many smaller skirmishes. The land itself is being fought over in the contested zones, while the lives of the kings hang in the balance in their haunts.

With all of these new elements in play, a set of rules had to be agreed upon by the diplomats and lawmen of each kingdom, and had to be sanctioned by each king.

The first rule is as follows: "Each kingdom may have its bishops erect a zone of safety around its castle, no more than two hundred paces in radius from the castle's center. Kings may not enter such zones, lest the war be without end."

The second rule reads thusly: "No kingdom may call into battle the raw powers possessed by their bishops, under any circumstances." This rule was quickly agreed upon by all, for they knew that otherwise the casualties would be too great.

The third rule was another that could be agreed upon by all, for it was only fair. "No bloodshed must take place after the horns of retreat are sounded to mark the end of a battle. Any pawn guilty of breaking this rule is to be served punishment by their own kingdom in the form of imprisonment or death, depending on the guilty party's intention."

A fourth and more general rule has always been upheld, but has only recently been made into an official rule. "All fighting is to be done on the Battlefield. Safe zones, home planets, the veil of asteroids, and all locations other than Skaia or the Battlefield are to be places of peace between the two kingdoms. Crimes of assault, murder and sabotage are not excusable by the war clause in these areas. Punishment is to be dealt by the kingdom of the aggressor according to mutual law."

* * *

After the history/law segment of the lesson, the captain decides it's time for a five-minute break to let all the knowledge sink in. You may stretch your legs and get some water, but you may not leave the mess hall. A concise summary of the information presented is still visible on the wall.

After five minutes, the captain says he is going to take this time to explain the concept of military units, since there may have been some confusion about this topic. It won't take him very long.

In the veil, where pawns are born, processed and trained, units of sixteen are used. Sixteen is a manageable number for processing and training in the veil. However, on the battlefield, larger units are preferred. Therefore, the two units that go on the dropship together become one unit of thirty-two for all intents and purposes on the battlefield.

However, due to the unfortunate fact that many pawns do not survive their first day on the battlefield, the guys upstairs are prone to switching pawns around among the units. This ensures that most of the units have a full thirty-two pawns to work with. Your unit will probably gain some new members from older units after your three-day castle training period.

Your unit is unit G6. There are currently four other units in residence here at the barracks beneath the castle. Every unit is led by a captain, and the captains all get their orders from the guys upstairs. In rare cases, a captain will be called out of active duty to go and work upstairs, but they are sworn to secrecy about everything that goes on up there. They're not seen around much, anyway. Your captain stresses once again that common pawns are NOT allowed upstairs from the ground floor.

The next segment is geography and basic war theory. The captain draws a diagram showing three faces of the Battlefield – the Derse Castle face, the Black King's Haunt, and one other face to the left of the castle.

As was mentioned earlier, each face of the battlefield is 480 paces long by 480 paces wide. The standard marching speed of a pawn is two paces per second. To put matters into perspective, that means it would take a pawn 240 seconds, or four minutes, to walk across a face of the battlefield.

If a pawn were to start at Derse Castle and walk directly toward the Black King's Haunt, it would therefore take him two minutes to do so, since the castle is in the center of the face that it is on.

If the Black King's Haunt was not in a state of almost perpetual conflict, that pawn could walk straight across that face in another four minutes, and cross over into the Prospit Castle face.

If Prospit Castle was not where it is, and the safe zone protecting it was also absent, then the pawn could walk across that face in another four minutes and enter the White King's Haunt. Keep in mind that the notion that such a thing is actually possible is completely absurd, and only exists as a learning aid. Please disregard it once the learning process for this segment is complete.

If this pawn could pass through Prospit Castle and its safe zone and make his way to the White King's Haunt, and if the White king and his forces were not there, then it would take him four minutes to cross it, and come back onto the Derse Castle face. He would reach Derse Castle in another two minutes. The trip would take him a total of sixteen minutes. Now would be an ideal time to disregard the notion that such a feat is actually possible.

Now the captain is going to talk about the two other faces. These faces are known as contested ground. The face visible on the diagram is called Contested Ground Alpha, and the face on the opposite side is called Contested Ground Beta. They're called "CG Alpha" and "CG Beta" for short. And that brings him to the next part of this segment- basic war theory.

Now, sometimes you might be given orders that you won't understand the reasoning behind. But naturally, you must go ahead and follow them anyway. This is because captains and your other superiors are well trained in war theory. The strategies and tactics used may boggle your little two-thousand minds. Hopefully, this lesson will help you all to become a little less stupid in this critical area of expertise.

Some of you may be asking what the purpose for the contested ground is. Why it's contested and whatnot. Well, it's contested because both sides are fighting to control it. You may be wondering why, because having control over the land is not the same thing as killing the white king. Well, at least you understand that much.

The fact is, killing the white king isn't easy. Killing ANY king isn't easy- that's why the battle has been raging on for a hundred and eight days. Controlling land- now, that's a little easier. The captain draws a large square, with a broad heading "CG Alpha." The top side of the square is labelled "BKH." The right side is labelled "DC". The bottom side is "WKH" and the left side is "PC."

This is a map of Contested Ground Alpha. Now, each of the contested ground faces has two forts on it. If a kingdom controls a fort, they control much of the land surrounding it. It might as well be that half of the CG face.

The captain draws a circle in the bottom-right corner of the square. It's closest to the "DC" and "WKH" sides. He draws a similar circle in the top-left corner, closest to the "PC" and "BKH" sides. Each circle touches the sides closest to it, and the two just barely touch in the center of the square. He draws a diagonal line in between them.

The captain directs your attention to the first of his two circles; the one on the bottom-right. This is Fort Cinereus. It is a key offensive point in the war effort. He draws a C in the middle of the circle.

The idea, numbshells, is that our side can send troops through this fort from Derse Castle to stage an attack on the White King's Haunt. If we put pressure on their left flank, then they have to send troops to defend it, and that weakens their overall defense. This is a key element of basic war theory. We call Fort Cinereous our "offensive" fort on CG Alpha.

The captain now speaks about the second circle. This is Fort Dilutus. He marks this with a capital D. See how it's closest to our King's Haunt? That means we had better keep that fort under our control, otherwise the enemy can do the same thing to us: attack our left flank. We do not want this to happen. Fort Dilutus is our defensive fort on CG Alpha.

At this very moment, Fort Cinereus is controlled by Prospit, and Fort Dilutus is controlled by Derse. Both kings' left flanks are safe.

He draws another square beside the first one. This is a map of CG Beta. The BKH is still on the top, and the WKH is still on the bottom, but this time DC is on the left and PC is on the right. The circles are also in the bottom-left and top-right corners this time. The diagonal line is drawn between them.

CG Beta is pretty much the same idea as CG Alpha. The fort on the bottom-left is Fort Scariosus (S). The fort on the top-right is Fort Hyalinus (H). On CG Beta, Scariosus is Derse's offensive fort, and Hyalinus is Derse's defensive fort. On CG Beta, an army can march to attack the enemy king's right flank.

Right now, Fort Scariosus is controlled by Derse, and Fort Hyalinus is controlled by Prospit. Both of the kings' right flanks are prone to attack.

It doesn't matter if you remember the fort names for now. All you should focus on right now are the concepts of offensive and defensive forts. To recap, an offensive fort for Derse is a fort that Derse uses to launch an attack on the White king's flank. An offensive fort for Derse is a defensive fort for Prospit, and vice versa, which should explain pretty well what a defensive fort for Derse is.

That concludes today's lesson on basic war theory. It also concludes today's Theory lesson. It is now 1800 hours, or, in layman's terms, six in the evening. Your work portion for the day is complete. The captain asks you to return here in one hour for the evening meal.

He says that you should find several copies of "A Pawn's Essential Guide to the Battlefield," on the tables in your quarters. They are for you to share and review what you have been taught. Do not remove them from your quarters. After the evening meal, you have a few hours of free time until lights-out at 2200. He can see no reason to keep you all here any longer, so you are all dismissed.

* * *

The evening meal is ration bread with orange gourd-mash. The bread on its own tastes a little bland, which is why most pawns break it in two and spread the mash over each chunk. To this effect, you are provided with tiny little dull spreading-swords. The blade is hardly longer than the handle, and there's no cross-piece! It works miracles at mash-spreading, though.

The mash tastes delicious on the warm ration bread. You were wondering what those orange gourds tasted like ever since you saw them on the farm. Last night was a thick bean stew over ration bread. It wasn't as flavorful as the gourd-mash. You think you'll get something new on the ration bread tomorrow.

After the meal, you feel energized and full. You were getting hungrier throughout the day. You think it would be a good idea if there was more than one mealtime in a single day. The current system works well enough, though. That lucky farmer 1836 probably gets to eat at whatever time of the day he wants!

You spend most of your day-end free time in your quarters, talking to the other pawns. Now that you've all fought with each other, there's an added sense of camaraderie that just wasn't there yesterday. You feel you really got to know many of them in the three short minutes you spent fighting, even though you didn't exchange a single word!

Having spent the first full day together, the pawns in your unit have so much more to talk to each other about. There isn't a single writing tablet left on the rack, they're all being used! The common area is crowded with pawns sitting, standing, crouching and reclining. Some of them are even sitting on the floor, crouched around their tablets. They don't even care that the seats are all taken! The couches are naturally filled beyond their intended capacity, with the pawns all squeezed together tightly.

You meet and get to know number 2307. He's the first pawn you sparred with today. His favorite part of the day was the drill training. You found it sort of dull, so you asked him what he liked about it. He said he liked the way the beeps sounded. All of them strung together with the right timing and pitch sounded really nice to him. He really got lost in it all, and felt completely at peace. You tell him you sort of know the feeling he's talking about.

You also met number 2330, the other bannerpawn in your unit. You saw him sitting on his bottom bunk, writing something on his tablet. Since there was no one else there, you approached him to ask him what he was doing. It turns out he was just finishing up a rather amazing picture of the castle, as viewed from afar. He says he likes to draw things on his tablet in his spare time. It's a shame he has to erase it soon; it's really quite pretty.

The hours fly by quickly in the company of your fellow soldiers, and before too long, a buzzer sounds. It's 9:55, five minutes before lights out. A suggestion for everyone to drop what they're doing and get into their beds before they're engulfed in darkness.

You return your tablet to its rack and climb onto your top bunk. The light-tube seems a little bit dimmer than it did earlier today. Maybe to show that it's night-time.

Your bed is so soft and comfortable. You feel drowsy already. It's more comfortable than the hammock on the dropship, but not quite as comfortable as the aqueous surroundings in your first house. In there, you felt truly weightless. This is a close second, though.

At 2200 hours, the lights go out. You realise how tired the day's events have made you. Exhausted, you drift off to sleep almost at once.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Create Mischief

It is approaching the twenty-fourth hour when you are roused from your sleep. A tablet is shoved in front of your face. You blink repeatedly as your eyes adjust. It's 13. He's using 22's writing tablet. He wants you to get up. You laugh to yourself. Is this guy serious? You question where he got the notion that you would even consider getting out of your comfortable bed to oh what the hell, you may as well find out what he wants.

You shove the tablet out of your face and quietly climb down the bunkbed ladder. By the dim light of the tablet, you can make out the faces of 13 and 22 against the darkness. You rub the sleep from your eyes and yawn silently. You give 13 an interrogative glare. What's all this about? 22 is standing beside him, looking a little nervous, gaze shifted floorward.

13 presses the button on the red tablet, and begins to write anew. He had the best idea. The three of you are about to do something crazy. Something that'll get everyone's attention in a way that's totally awesome and cool! Pawns'll be talking about this for days to come! So here's what you're going to do…

This is the stupidest idea ever. As you walk down the pitch-black hallway by the light of 22's tablet, you question for the fourth time why in the name of Skaia's radiant blue sky you are doing this. Why you didn't just go back to sleep. Oh, right. To make sure these two numbshells don't get caught. You wonder why you didn't just go back to bed anyway and leave them to their fates. Or at least try and talk them out of it. 22 would be the easiest to convince, and then 13 would have to stay. He'd never try to pull something like this on his own.

You don't know. At the time, talking them out of it hadn't occurred to you. Your mind is always a little hazy when you first wake up. It was either go with them or stay in bed. It just didn't feel right to you to leave them to it and get caught. Call it a stupid sense of loyalty. And you're not really hurting anyone, either…

13 is holding the tablet facing in front to light the way. You can't see any part of them except their eyes. Their black shells absorb the minimal light that gets to them. 13's eyes are wide open, and focused squarely on the path ahead of him. He's excited. 22 is looking around nervously, eyes darting all around, and occasionally checking behind him.

You arrive at your destination. The kitchen. The place where all the food for the barracks facility is prepared. The door is just to the left of the door to the mess hall. You nervously look around to make sure you aren't being watched. It's really hard to tell. The long hallways that have become so familiar can't be trusted in the dark. A chill runs down your spine.

You hurry your friends into the kitchen, and your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness. 13 and 22 start searching right away. They need to find what they're looking for quickly, or you could all get caught. It's not clear what the punishment is for being out and about after curfew.

You begin to wonder if it's all even worth it. It might cause some confusion and excitement tomorrow, but then again, it might not. After it's all said and done, is anyone really going to care?

In any case, you guess you'd better help those two look. The sooner you can get back to sleep, the better. You check to see if the others have found anything yet. They haven't. You wonder if it's too late to talk them out of it. You really don't want to get caught.

But wait! 13's found them! At the far end of the room, a number of boxes are stacked along the wall. They are labelled according to their contents; things like "Beans" and "Corn" and "Orange Mash." You're doing this, man. You're making this happen.

Phase One: Wherein the cans are all removed from several boxes. The three of you grab eight boxes of various foodstuffs from the stacks. You open their tops, stack all the cans in piles, and leave the empty boxes to one side.

Phase Two: Wherein the cans are stripped of their oh god dammit 22, this is no time for fooling around. 22 has made a square formation out of four stacks of cans. The stacks are almost as tall as he is, and he's found a meal tray to place on top of them. He's looking to place some more cans on top of the tray to make his tower even taller. Actually you think it looks quite fun. "Can Tower" is what you would call it.

No! What are you thinking? You need to put a stop to 22's shenanigans so that you may continue carrying out 13's shenanigans! You drub the back of his head. Startled, he jumps forward, and the whole tower comes crashing down. He looks like he is ready to murder you.

Anyway! Phase Two: Wherein the cans are all stripped of their labels. 22 half-heartedly carries out his share of the duty, regarding each can with a meaningful look. They could have been so much more than just mere cans.

You scoop up all the labels and throw them down the garbage chute. On to Phase Three: Wherein the cans are all mixed up and packed back into random boxes. This should make the next few meals rather interesting. You begin to appreciate the wisdom of 13's master plan. You wonder if any pawns have ever been this daring before. The three of you are so cool, it's almost unreal.

You heft the boxes back up to where you found them. No one will be the wiser until it's too late. You admit, this _is_ rather fun.

You start to hear the sounds of furniture being moved around in the mess hall. Someone's in there, and it sounds like a whole group of someones! Who could be up and about this late at night? You look at your friends and see nothing but panic on their faces. You're sure it shows on your own face, too. The three of you need to get back to your quarters, quickly!

You scurry back to the room and leap back into your beds. Playtime is over. Your heart is racing. Thank Skaia you weren't caught! You can't wait until mealtime tomorrow. You wonder how everyone will react.

* * *

Two more days pass by. You live life according to the schedule set by your superiors. Jogging and drills in the morning. A midday break. Sparring and theory in the afternoon. An evening meal. A few hours of free time at night. A ten o' clock bedtime. Repeat.

The evening meals for these days are indeed a little more interesting. Instead of just having one topping to choose from on the bread, you now have three or four to choose from on a given day. The kitchen staff refused to give any explanation for the change, simply calling it "A change of pace." You ate your mash with a sense of triumph. Tastes like victory.

On the evening of your third full day at the castle, the captain tells you that you and several other units are going to march to take Fort Cinereus on the next day. The thought of that scares you a little. You haven't been outside the safe zone in so long! It feels like it's been forever since you got here. You've sort of grown used to the idea of that big purple bubble protecting all of you.

Snap out of it! That's no way for a soldier of the Derse army to be thinking! You must follow all orders without question or hesitation! Fort Cinereus, you say? Consider it captured! You can't wait to get started!

On the morning of day 111, the captain comes in and writes on the wall that he wants you all to report to the mess hall in ten minutes for briefing. Bring your weapons. The order is received with varying levels of energy among the pawns in your unit. Some of them jump right out of their beds, slapping each other on the back and exchanging high fives. Some of them groggily crawl out of bed, retrieve their weapons, and amble toward the door with a sigh. Others do as they're told with casual indifference, displaying no emotion whatsoever. And a few are still huddled in their beds when you leave the room at five past six with your friends.

The mess hall is less than half as crowded as it is during mealtime. You guess that represents how many of the pawns stationed at the castle are going on the mission with you today. Glowing red text on the walls over each table indicates which unit sits where.

Four pawns to a bench. Four benches to a table. Two tables to a unit. You, 22 and 13 get on a bench at one of the G6 tables. Some of the other units that are here include units F6, E6, A6 and D6.

You remember the tragic story that you were told once about unit C6. The battle at the Black King's Haunt was particularly bloody on the day they landed. Not one of them made it to the castle in the end. Survivors of that battle say that they were some of the bravest, most skilled newcomers they had ever seen. T'was a crying shame.

Pawns continue to filter into the mess hall until ten past six, when a buzzer sounds. Several captains enter the room; one for each unit. They line up at the far end of the room and face their seated subordinates.

Captain 0848 starts writing first. He says that the first order of business is to merge some of the units with the aim of creating as many filled units as possible. First of all, the members in B6 are told to join unit A6. There aren't very many pawns in either unit. The captain of B6 salutes his former unit, and then leaves the room. He'll be assigned to a new unit soon.

Second, unit D6 is split up. Pawns number 2206, 2207, 2210, 2215, 2216, 2218 and 2219 are placed into your group, group G6. They move from the first D6 table and move to the G6 tables. Seven of them in total. Seven of them plus twenty-five of you makes for an even thirty-two. One of them takes the empty seat at the end of your bench, just to your right. You do your best to give him a welcoming look. He seems indifferent, and doesn't meet your eye. As if he's trying to ignore you.

The rest of the pawns in D6 are called by number and placed into F6. Their former captain salutes them and leaves.

Unit E6 is an archer unit. Only the pawns most skilled in the bow are placed into this unit. The archers do most of their training outside the castle. Their unit is captained by the twin captains 1162 and 1163. Archer units normally have two captains so that they can easily be split in half and directed independently. E6 is currently full, so it's not interfered with.

Unit A6 is regarded as an elite unit of skilled melee fighters. They've been around for almost two weeks now. For a unit to still have most of its members after that amount of time is pretty darned impressive. You guess the remaining soldiers in B6 must have been pretty good to get merged in with A6.

The four units left in the room now are A6, E6, F6 and G6. The elite fighters, the archers, your unit, and F6, who you reckon must be just a little bit better than yours. The captains lead everyone out of the mess hall, one unit at a time.

* * *

The units gather in the field outside the castle. The captains are spaced far apart, so that their units may stand before them. They have you all facing toward the Black King's Haunt, with two square formations to a unit. You stand with 13 on your left, 22 in front of you, and the guy from D6 behind you. The other units are still filing out of the castle and getting into formation.

You look around you and examine the faces of your comrades. 13 is trying to look brave, but is not doing a very good job. The guy from D6 is staring straight ahead with unwavering indifference. He sees you looking at him and glares back. You feel inclined to look elsewhere.

22 turns his head to face you. His deep purple bannerspear leans against his shoulder. He looks worried. You think he's got nothing to worry about. If none of the pawns in your unit could land a hit on him in training, you figure the enemy doesn't have much of a chance, either. Besides, he'll have the captain right beside him to back him up. Just look at those muscles!

When the last pawn from A6 gets into position, their captain has his bannermen sound their horns once in unison. They're ready. Unit A6 turns left, facing CG Alpha as well as all the other units.

Next in line is unit E6. Their bannermen sound their horns, and the whole unit turns left. Unit F6 does the same. When it's your unit's turn to sound the ready horns, 22 almost drops his because his hands are shaking so much.

The captain shakes his head as your unit sounds its horns. You turn to face left. Now you've got 22 on your right, the guy from D6 on your left and 13 in front of you. 13's in the front row now.

Captain 0848 brings the other half of your unit up to the right of your half. The captain of A6 brings his unit to your unit's left, and the captain of F6 brings his unit to your unit's right.

The captains of E6 split their group into two half-units of sixteen archers each. Captain 1162 takes his half-unit behind A6, and captain 1163 takes his half-unit behind F6.

All of the horns blow once. You all march forward, towards Fort Cinereus.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

March Fortward

A minute and a half later, you cross over to the CG Alpha face. You can see the lofty Fort Cinereus a little more than a hundred paces away. It looms at maybe fifty paces high, and there is little contrast to its checkerboard pattern. It looks to be an ashen, cinder grey throughout.

Horns sound in the direction of the fort. The Prospitian forces must be preparing their defences. You march forward another sixty paces, bringing you halfway to the fort. Your own horns sound to pause the advance.

The fort consists of only a single circular tower. There aren't any walls or any such thing. The doors are raised a ways off the ground, such that you can only access them when they are open, using them as ramps to the doorway. The door facing you and your group is closed up tight; they don't want you just walking in. The doors on the left and right of the tower are open, and troops are pouring out of each door and assembling outside.

It looks like a unit of 32 on either side of the tower. That means you've got them outnumbered 3 to 2 on the melee side. And you've got archers, too! That fort's as good as yours!

A half-unit of enemy archers starts to peek over the crenellations on the roof of the tower. That means you've got twice as many archers as them! Excellent.

A long, drawn-out horn sounds on your side. You were told in briefing a few minutes ago that the melee units are all to charge forward at this horn. The battle begins. You draw your sword and run forward.

You see two volleys of arrows come from behind you and fly up to the top of the tower. Some of them fall short of the tower. Half of them are blocked by the crenellations. But a few of them find their marks. Two enemy archers fall from the tower, and several more of them take less-than-fatal injuries. Return fire comes rather quickly, but these are aimed at your own advancing melee soldiers. Thankfully, the volley is not very large, so only a few casualties are had.

The two enemy units have formed a defensive line in front of you. Your units have broken formation and spread out significantly, as you were told to do. It gives smaller targets for the enemy archers when you're farther away from each other. You also have room to maneuver when fighting.

You're running right towards the enemy line, sword raised. The first pawn you come to raises his blade in defense. You hit it as hard as you can, and you both slide to a stop. Your eyes lock. You've done this a hundred times before. The difference now is you're fighting an enemy, not a friend.

He disengages first and tries to swipe at your legs from your right side. You tilt your sword down to block his. You push his sword away, bringing both swords in a counter-clockwise motion above your heads and back down to the ground. A neat little reversal tactic you picked up in your three days of sparring. Your sword used to be on the bottom, but now it's on top.

You slide your sword up towards your opponent before he can react to the reversal. It cuts him pretty badly in the right shoulder. He cringes in pain. You kick him to the ground before he can recover and finish him off. You pull your sword out of him. You see the red on white again. It doesn't bother you as much. Nothing you haven't seen before. You decide not to think about what you just did, and do what comes naturally. If you stand around here all day, you'll get yourself killed.

An arrow rushes past your head and smotes in the ground behind you. You look up at the fort. Arrows are pouring out of vertical slits in the tower. You hadn't really noticed them before, but if arrows are coming out of them, you guess they must be important. You wonder why you weren't told about that in briefing.

There's really nothing you can do about the arrows, so you focus on the more immediate threat of the enemy's ground troops. You guess if you get close enough to the tower, the arrows won't be able to reach you, anyway. You find a new target.

This one's a spear user. He just saw you kill that guy you killed, so now he's coming after you. You advance at him, sword still slick with pawn blood. The closer you get to him, the better. Spears might have long range, but they're hard to use in really close quarters.

He jabs at you before you can get too close, but you sidestep out of the way to the right. You saw that one coming. You swing at his head from left to right, but he pulls his spear up and knocks your sword aside. Before you can react, the side of his spear comes back and hits you in the head. You drop to the ground, sword still in hand.

You instinctively know that if you want to live, you must roll to the side immediately. A split second later, the enemy's spear pierces the ground where your torso used to be.

You scramble to your feet through the intense pain in your head. The other guy really drubbed you good. Your vision is cloudy, and you hear a ringing on the injured side that definitely wasn't there before.

Since he lunged into the ground with so much power, it takes your opponent half a second longer than normal to pull his spear out. In that half second, your sword is able to travel the distance to his side. You run him through. That fight was too close. You almost died. You take a few seconds to get over your head wound.

Suddenly, something very peculiar happens. Rather, a bunch of very peculiar somethings happen all at once. Firstly, the ground beneath you begins to shake a little bit with a low rumble. You have a hard time keeping your balance.

Secondly, everything becomes a whole lot farther away from everything else. The distance between you and the tower is doubled, as is the distance between you and an enemy pawn you had your eye on.

Thirdly, the ground stops being flat and starts being not-flat. The tower is raised up on a hill of its own. The hill extends in a circle for tens of paces in every direction. The hill itself might be about thirty paces high. Other hills and valleys can be seen in the distance around you.

Also, a second hill rises up in the distance to the right of the tower. Magically, an identical tower rises up out of the hill. You've never seen such an amazing sight in all your life! The tips of the crenellations are followed by the roof itself, and then the main part of the tower, with all its arrow-slits. The doors appear in their open position, and then part of the tower's foundation is made visible. You wonder how such a large thing could just appear like that. This place must really be magic!

The last thing that happens, you don't notice until a little later, because it's not very noticeable. You realise that you can't find any of the edges or corners of the world. The land just extends in every direction, like a circle around you. It's really weird.

All of the changes have stopped changing within twenty seconds. Everyone else seems a little freaked out, and the fighting has stopped momentarily. But the battle's not over until one side sounds the retreat/surrender horns, or until one side's all dead. You charge at another enemy.

A sword user. He snaps to attention when he sees you charging at him. He raises his sword in defence. CLASH! The sound of metal on metal is heard once again. You've been hearing it all throughout the battle. It stopped for a while when the everything changed, but it's starting to pick back up again.

Another struggle. Another locking of the eyes. Another display of power or cunning. Inevitably, another dead pawn. Him or you. Who's it going to be? You have to admit you're enjoying this just a little bit.

You put your full power into your sword. For some reason, you're stronger in the arm than most pawns. Your locked swords slide closer to the enemy. Fear starts to show in his eyes. You feel neither happiness nor disdain in response to this. You're just following orders.

At this point, he is unable to disengage from or win the initial struggle. Your sword comes within slashing distance of his neck. With one final movement, you slit his throat with the tip of your blade. The resistance from his sword weakens and stops as he loses his grip on the handle. Blood runs out of the gash on his neck and stains his garish yellow-and-blue uniform red. The life fades out of his eyes. He is dead before he reaches the ground. Just one more casualty of the war.

* * *

Meanwhile, it seems that your side has taken a lot of fire from the enemy's arrows. The hill has made it easier for them to rain the shots down onto your comrades. Furthermore, the melee fighters on the higher ground have the advantage over the melee fighters on the lower ground. It's hard to fight someone who stands over you. For the most part, that means the defending side has the advantage.

But the Prospitian defences have taken heavy casualties from being outnumbered for so long. You think your side can take the tower and win this. Oh look, another enemy has come rather close to you. You get up to higher ground so that you're not put at a disadvantage. You come at him from an even height.

You attempt a barrage of quick slashes and strikes, but the enemy's spear absorbs them all. Forehand, backhand, thrust, reverse overhead, overhead, forehand! Each one is blocked in turn with ease. The other guy hasn't even attempted to counterattack you yet. It reminds you of someone you know.

You switch to a thrust-heavy style of combat. Thrusts are harder to block, therefore you have a better chance against those who block everything. You thrust right at him, but he deflects your sword with the middle part of his spear. It goes off to your right, so you try to turn the failed thrust into a reverse overhead strike. His spear moves to the other side with lightning speed to block your new attack. This guy is good.

You slide your sword up the length of his spear to try and cut his hand, but he spins his spear such that your sword is pushed downwards. With your sword pinned to the ground, you're unprepared when he rams the length of his spear forward into your jaw. You drop your sword and fall back. This guy is too good.

You're lying on your back. This is it. You've lost. You're going to die. Your view is blocked by the pawn who has bested you, spear in hand. You tilt your head upwards to view the sky behind you. You don't want your last sight to be this ugly mug staring back at you. You hope this will be over soon. The sky looks beautiful today. The way you're craning your head on the ground hurts your neck. It's well worth it, to be able to see the sky one last time…

In the bottom of your eye, you see your enemy raise his spear, sharp end pointed directly at your heart. But he hesitates for one second. As if part of him doesn't want to kill you. Maybe you're his first kill. It's entirely possible. You just hope that he knows how to do it right. That he doesn't just pierce your stomach and leave you to bleed out. Even with your eyes full of sky, that would still suck tremendously.

Suddenly, you hear a horn blast on your side. A second of silence. Another horn blast. The horns of retreat have been sounded. The law says that your enemy has to let you walk now. It doesn't say he has to help you to your feet. But curiously enough, he does anyway.

You rub the back of your head and avoid his gaze. You feel that this is a very strange situation. Thinking your behaviour to be rude, you meet his eye apologetically. You extend your hand in goodwill. He shakes it, and nods his head once in respect.

The bloodshed stopped the instant the horns were heard. No one wanted to break the common law of the two kingdoms. Pawns in the middle of deadly combat had to stop immediately. It was awkward for everyone involved.

You regroup with what's left of your unit and confirm that none of your best friends have died. When everyone's assembled, you march away in the direction of Derse Castle. You don't look back.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Return to the Castle

You find it strange that there aren't any edges to the world anymore. You had grown so used to them. Now, you have no way of telling how far away you are from the castle. You're pretty sure the world must've grown. That's what the higher-ups predicted, anyway.

You wondered why everything became farther away from everything else back there. It must have been because the world sort of stretched itself out and gotten bigger. Which would explain the rumbling. Yeah, you feel you have a pretty good grasp of how stuff works around here.

So this is the fabled "Battlefield Spheric." You quite like it. The landscape goes up and down with hills and valleys. There's also a lot more grass than there was before.

The countryside is also dotted here and there with little brown towers covered with bunches of grass at the top. They look natural and nice. In the distance to your right, you can see what appears to be a large cluster of these towers.

Another change is that the rivers now flow by gravity instead of magic. You think the rivers are in the same places as they were before, except now the land is sloped in such a way that the streams flow from high ground to low ground. It's something you can wrap your head around now.

You take a moment to assess the casualties that your side took. About one third of the pawns in A6 are missing, so they must have died in battle. Unit F6 is down to half of its members. They were hit the hardest.

Your unit didn't lose very many soldiers. Only about a quarter of you are missing. It's sad, but at least you didn't know any of them personally.

The archer unit E6 lost about a third of their guys to return fire from the tower. Regrettably, captain 1162 of E6 was also killed, reportedly by an arrow in the neck.

All in all, your side lost about 45 guys. Somehow you don't think the other side lost that many. You couldn't even complete your mission! It was a complete disaster! WHY did Skaia have to choose that very moment to change the Battlefield?

Okay, you've been marching for a good five minutes now. Where's the castle? One would think you'd at least be able to see it by now!

Let's cipher this out: it took you about two and a half minutes to walk from the Castle to Fort Cinereus. That was on the Battlefield Cubic. Then the world changed. Everything was stretched out so that everything was twice as far away from everything else compared to what it was before. That should mean that the world only became twice as big.

But that would mean it would only take you five minutes to get back to the castle! You should be back by now! Maybe some parts of the world were stretched more than others. You decide to stop worrying about it and enjoy the scenery. You'll get there when you get there.

You think you like this new world. Oh, wait! You're not supposed to like it! You're supposed to want to destroy it! That's what all the fighting back there was about.

Well, you guess you can't help what you do or don't like. And you're pretty sure no one else can change the things you like, either. Besides, it's not like it hurts anyone.

You find it interesting how the squares of black and white soil seem to curve with the contours of the land. Since the world isn't very flat, they can't really be squares anymore. If you could do such a thing as pick one up and flatten it out, you think each one would have the same surface area of ten paces by ten paces.

Silly you. You can't pick up the ground! Don't be ridiculous! What would you stand on if you went and did a thing like that? You wonder what would be underneath it if you could, though. Is there anything beneath the ground besides more ground?

You pass over some hills and through some valleys. You see large clusters of small towers with grass. Wide, rolling plains host some of the largest patches of grass you've ever seen. A large lake of deep blue water is fed by a multitude of smaller streams. Yet the sky remains the same. You think it was perfect to begin with.

You walk for another thirteen minutes before you reach the top of the final hill and see the castle. It rests in the middle of a strip of lowland running to the left and right in front of you. A similar hill to the one you're on stretches across the far side of the lowland, creating a valley. At the ends of the valley, the hills dip down and the lowland climbs up gently until it's all level ground again.

The first thing you notice that's different about the castle is its size. It's easily twice as big in every direction as it was earlier this morning. It also has five towers instead of just the one. The center tower looms above the others with impressive height. The four new towers stand at each corner of the main structure with uniform vigilance. Crenellated walls surround the roof such that a pawn could walk all the way around the perimeter of the castle roof and have access to each of the four towers. With the right pawns guarding it, the new Derse Castle could be a completely impenetrable fortress.

And it's good that it would be so easy to defend. Because the zone of safety doesn't seem to be there anymore. It took you a while to notice because you only ever saw the actual purple dome once, when you were walking to the castle for the first time a few days ago. But it's definitely not there anymore. You're confused. If there's no zone of safety around the castle, then what's to keep the enemy from tearing it down? The higher-ups should get that sorted out quickly.

It's a pretty steep hill down, so you all break formation as you descend into the valley. But you all get back into formation at the drop of a hat. Literally. One day in training, the captain told your unit to become an unorganised mob. He then took his hat off his head, held it high, and dropped it. You were to get back into formation by the time it hit the ground. There were never any problems there. A captain dropping his hat at any time was an easy way of telling his unit to get back into formation.

It takes your group another two minutes to reach the castle. You estimate your total journey time to be about twenty minutes. By way of straight line distances, the world has expanded eightfold.

You notice another new thing about the castle. A large stream still flows around the castle. It seems to run very close to the castle walls, and is maybe eight paces wide. A large door in the open position functions as a bridge across to the open doorway.

Beyond the doorway lies the courtyard- a good bit of open space with grassless soil just before the steps up to the castle's main structure. The captains decide to use this space as a rally point to give you further orders. For now, you are to wait at ease in the courtyard for them to enter the castle and inspect its interior changes.

Being at ease means you get to break formation and talk amongst yourselves where possible. But you had better be ready to get back into formation when that hat drops.

You sure are lucky to have a friend with a portable tablet. It means that you can talk to him whenever you want if you have a moment to spare. You're wondering how 22 is doing. He's looked quite troubled since the battle this morning. He spent the journey back staring off into emptiness, even with all the amazing new scenery around him.

When asked about it, he tells you that he'll talk about it later. It's not the right time or place. What he will talk about, though, is the amazing new world around him! He finds it just as fantastic as you do! There's even more grass than there was before! Truly, the world around you keeps getting more and more impressive. Neither of you can wait to see the inside of the new castle.

The four captains emerge from the castle's large doorway and descend the wide staircase to the courtyard. The units all get back into formation before the captains even remove their hats. Captain 0848 has with him a writing tablet. It seems that those things can even work on these outside courtyard walls.

You are told that all the rules from before still apply with regard to where pawns are and are not allowed. Pawns of the common rank are still not allowed above the ground floor without the express permission of a captain. The basement area is still set aside for sleeping, eating and training quarters as usual.

However, you will all find that many things about the castle have changed. For one thing, it is much larger than it was before. This is because many new rooms have been added. You common pawns are allowed to explore and frequent these rooms in your free time, keeping in mind that you are not allowed above the ground floor.

He would now like to talk to you about today's mission to capture Fort Cinereus. In case any of you were not paying sufficient attention, you did **not** successfully capture Fort Cinereus. This means that the mission was a failure. He would, however, like to address the fact that, had the battlefield not changed at that deciding moment of the battle, the Derse forces would have been victorious on this day. Of this he has no doubts.

In any case, the valor and bravery displayed by all of you on this day has earned you all the rest of the day off. Your units will receive no further orders until tomorrow morning. You are advised to get lots of rest and to mentally prepare for another day of battle tomorrow. You are all dismissed.

* * *

With no further orders, you and 22 run off to explore the new castle. The main foyer is even bigger than before! There's also a big notice board on the right side of the front desk. You presume it'll have all sorts of information that you don't necessarily need to know, but probably should check out anyway. Anything that's essential will always be told to your whole unit by a captain.

The first new room on the first floor that you check out is the common room. Scores of seats, couches and low tables line the room from wall to wall. There must be close to a hundred purple-bordered writing tablets in this room! A large cabinet of board games sits invitingly in one corner. You look forward to spending long hours of free time in deep conversation with your fellow pawns in this room.

Directly across the foyer from the common room is the new library. A variety of desks and chairs are spread throughout many rows of bookshelves. You've never seen so many books in all your life! There must be hundreds of them in here!

You take a moment to examine some of the titles. "A Footsoldier's Guide to Combat," by number 0448. "A Footsoldier's Guide to the Battlefield," also by 0448. This looks like the Information section of the library. There's a whole series of "Footsoldier's Guide" books. Politics, Law, Military Structure, Basic Technology, Field Tactics, the list of titles goes on and on.

You glance at the names of some of the other sections of the library. Fiction, Lore, Public Records, Derse Law, Common Law, Cartography, Geography, Poetry…

This is a pretty big library. You're definitely going to return here time and time again. But for now, there's other stuff to check out.

You and 22 go to check out the new barracks facility downstairs. The map shows that all the existing sleeping quarters are in the same places as they were before. Except now there are, like, forty new rooms. You wonder how many pawns are going to end up living down here with you. It's starting to become a little overwhelming.

The mess hall is easily three times the size it was before. It's as if the far wall simply moved back a ways where there used to be nothing. But there's still not enough room for all the pawns that can live in the new rooms. Different groups will probably have to eat at different times.

That's all the new stuff downstairs. Just some new sleeping rooms and a larger mess hall. You assume the armory and training rooms are a lot bigger, too, but you're not supposed to enter those rooms without good reason. You decide to go back upstairs to check out the notice board.

The board itself is made of a soft brown material. Pieces of paper with printed words on them are stuck into the board by way of sharp little pins. These must be the notices.

Here's a notice about mealtimes. No changes in the schedule yet. Good. You like eating at the regular time.

A notice about the library. It will be ready to lend books sometime tomorrow, as soon as the appropriate staff can be assigned to it. Until then, no books are to leave the library.

This next notice is on a really big sheet of paper. The words are bigger and look a little different. It says that a lot of new arable farmland has become available since the emergence of the Battlefield Spheric. Forty new farmhouses have already been erected to prepare for the influx of new soldiers from the Veil.

Therefore, forty pawns may make the choice to abandon their military duties in favor of villeinship. This offer does not extend to pawns of Captain or higher rank. More information on villeinship may be found in the Information section of the Castle Library.

Interesting. They're asking some pawns to retire from the army and become farmers. The idea doesn't strike you as very appealing. You have lots of friends here in the army. The food is good, and the work's not too hard. This is the only life you know.

That's all of the notices. After a long pause, 22 asks you if you want to step outside and skygaze for a bit. There's nothing you'd rather spend your afternoon doing.

The two of you walk across the valley floor to the hill you walked over earlier. A good two-minute walk. There's a good patch of grass- not too long, not too short- that runs up a large area of the hill from the valley floor. You're happy to realise that it's even more comfortable to lie down on a sloped surface than it is to lie flat on your back.

22 decides he's going to lie in the wrong direction, just so he can roll down the hill in the grass. That silly goose. He comes back up and lies on his front beside you. He really does love it out here.

Momentarily disregarding your friend and his antics, you lose yourself in the beautiful clouds of the skies above Derse Castle. Skygazing's a little different now with the world the way it is. The clouds in the far-off skies look like they're fluffy on top and flat on the bottom.

You wonder if there's more sky now than there was before. If you think about it, the sky always has to be above the land. And if the world got bigger, it means that new land was created. Therefore, new sky must have been created, too.

It's odd to think of the sky as something that can change. You mean, sure, the clouds all move around and appear and disappear, but the sky itself? That can't be right. The sky is already the biggest thing you know about. How could it ever get bigger or smaller?

A particularly fluffy cloud drifts overhead. It reminds you of something…

A flash of red. A clash of metal on dull metal. A stench of rust and iron.

No… no… You aren't going back to this. It's a fresh memory, but it's the same as the one before. Something you did.

A new vision. A great field full of pawns, both black and white. All of them dead. Stabbed through the torso. Head cut from shoulders. Sliced in two across the waist. A myriad of terrible, bloody fates.

How many pawns did you kill today? Do you even remember? Did you even keep count? Those pawns had lives of their own. Friends. Wishes. Favorite things to do. And you didn't even know a single one of their names. How despicable.

No, no, no! It's not your fault! You have to either follow your commanding officer or be convicted of treason! You were just following orders!

Just following orders? How convenient. You know you enjoyed it when you overpowered your enemy and slit his throat where he stood. You liked being stronger than him. You got a rush out of being so much better than someone else, didn't you? You're disgusting. That last enemy should have slain you where you lay.

But he didn't, did he? He hesitated. He could have killed you in that second before the retreat horns blew. So why didn't he? You were trying to kill him, and he was trying to kill you. Why'd he stop? After all, you didn't hesitate even once today.

You're even more bloodthirsty than the enemy pawns! And they're the bad guys! So what does that make you? What do you call someone who's worse than the bad guys?

Apparently, you call them "2323 of the Derse army." Because that's exactly what you are. Worse than the bad guys. That arrow should've hit you right between the eyes. It would've made the world a better place.

* * *

Your train of thought is interrupted by 22. There's something he wants to talk to you about. He startles you, as if you were being woken from a deep sleep. You focus all of your attention on him. You ask him what it is.

It takes him a few minutes to write down all that he wants to say. He clears his tablet a few times, as if to make revisions. When he's finally done, you take the tablet from him.

He's not usually one to speak his mind about things that trouble him. But he feels that this cannot go unsaid. He hates fighting. He's never been any good at it, not since the first day in battle simulation. He's almost lost his life many times. He never wants to have to take a life. Not even once. He wishes it was as easy for him to follow orders as it is for you. The thought of him having to kill another pawn makes him sick to his stomach.

He was relieved when he was selected for banner duty, because it meant being away from the front line of battle. But he knows that if he continues on like this, he's going to be forced to make a very difficult choice.

That's why he wants to leave the army. To start a new life, as a peaceful villein farmer, just like 1836. When he saw the notice on the board today, he knew it was his way out of the violent life. He intends to sign up for the change today. He wants to know what you think about it all.

You're taken aback. You've never read so many words on a tablet in all your life. You didn't think that 22 could be so verbose. He's always so reserved with his words.

Well, he's been patiently awaiting a response for quite a while now. It did take you a while to get through his message. You'd better start writing something. You tell him you won't try to stop him from leaving a life that he hates. If this is what he feels he must do, then you wish him all the best in it.

He thanks you for understanding. He says he's going to miss you. You tell him the same.

You've both said all that you wanted to. You cloudgaze in silence, just happy to be in each other's company. You'll visit him at his farm whenever you can. Still, you'll be seeing a lot less of each other. You sure are gonna miss this guy.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Make New Friends

The next morning, you wake up to the realisation that it's no longer your dear friend 22 sleeping in the bunk above you, but that new guy from D6. 22 was packed up and moved to his new farmhouse within an hour of signing up. The Kingdom never was one to beat around the bush. They must've wanted him to start work as soon as possible.

Well, he's settled into his new life, now. You were sad to see him go, but life continues on as usual. You were told that the standard training schedule was to be in effect today. Jogging, drills, and sparring. What fun.

You roll out of bed after the buzzer stops its damned racket. It occurs to you that you still don't know the name of that D6 guy. It's just not right to be bunk-mates with a complete stranger.

He's reading a book in bed. He must've been up since before the wake-up buzzer sounded. You grab a writing tablet, and step up on your bunk to reach him. You wave a hand in greeting. He glances over at you, but otherwise ignores you completely.

You introduce yourself and ask him his name. He glances at your tablet momentarily. He sighs. He takes the tablet, and writes a single four-digit number. 2216. Well, at least you know the guy's name now.

You ask him what book he's reading. He seems to be a little ticked off at your continued presence. He shows you the front cover. "A Footsoldier's Guide to Politics." You really should get better acquainted with this series when you have time.

You begin to sense that you're no longer welcome in the two and a half cubic paces of space above your own bed. Whatever. You made your effort to be friendly and welcoming to this guy. Looks like he's not interested. You return to your own two and a half cubic paces of space.

You seek out 30, your artist friend. Perhaps he's working on a new creation on that tablet of his. Oh, look, he's deep in conversation with someone you don't know. Whatever. What's good ol' 13 up to? Hmm. Nowhere to be found.

Well, you guess you'd better just head up to the courtyard. It's the new general rally point for most units. You had gotten used to ten minutes of chitchat and tomfoolery with 22 and other chums before your day got started. It sort of got you through the morning. But right now, you haven't got anything better to do.

You step outside the castle and survey the surrounding countryside. It's so beautiful out here. You take a seat on the side of the staircase down to the courtyard, and lean back. The cool morning air fills your lungs once more. You sigh loudly.

That guy's only been gone for a few waking hours, and you already feel lost without him. This is ridiculous. He's off in his new, peaceful life. You wished him well, said your goodbyes, and saw him off! You left no loose ends!

This is weak. You should never have to rely on anyone else this much! You have other friends! You don't NEED that guy to make your life interesting! You've got your own stuff going on! Like…

Ugh, you don't have time for this. Don't you have training to do? Oh, look, it's almost 6:15. Better go line up!

* * *

You do what you have to do for the next five hours and forty-five minutes. The only thing different about the jog is that you're now jogging with uphill and downhill parts. The route is still the same boring square around the castle. You read some mediocre stuff in the library about various laws in the kingdoms for your half-hour break. Whatever.

Morning drills are the same as always. Hear the note. Hit the dummy. Hear a different note. Hit the dummy a different way. Lather, rinse, repeat. You just disappear into the rhythm of things, switching your mind to a low-power state. Not really thinking about much. Just going through the motions. By now, the techniques are second nature to you. You hear a note and instantly know what it means. You guess that's the goal of the drill training. But you don't really care.

When your two-hour break rolls around, you perk up a little. Maybe now you can go visit 22! You wonder how his first full day of farming is going! You can tell him all about how boring your day has been so far and you can rant about that cocky douche from D6 and you can -oh wait, you don't actually know where his farm is.

Well… Blast! Looks like you're stuck in the castle until 22 visits first. After that, he can show you the way to his house. Until then, there's no way you'd be able to find him. There are farmhouses EVERYWHERE in the valley floor! He could be in any ONE of them! You sigh loudly again.

Eventually, two o' clock becomes the time of day. Finally. The one part of your day you're GUARANTEED to enjoy! Sparring practice! The one redeeming factor of this dreary, boring day! You can hardly wait to clash swords with your fellow footsoldiers in a perfect simulation of actual combat!

You pick up a red-light waster. You feel its simulated weight in your hand. Oh, yes. You'll show that smug mister 2216 who's worth who's time. Oh, look! He's a sword user, too. Even better that you're using the same weapon. You'd hate to have anyone say that it wasn't a fair test of skill due to differing weapons used.

As you get put into groups, you realise that your group isn't fighting his just yet. Showing him up will have to wait. You take on your first opponent with haste and indifference. You're not interested in this one. You've got bigger fish to fry.

First match. Spear user. The guy doesn't really look like he's all there. Maybe he's tired or dopey or just isn't all that interested. Ridiculous. Everyone should bring their A-game to sparring practice. There's just no excuse.

BZZZZZZ! The first buzzer sounds. You flip your waster around in your hand and get a good grip of it. You slash from left to right with both hands. His block comes a little late, and your sword almost gets him in the side before stopping.

In one fluid motion, you spin your whole body away from him and reverse your grip, coming full circle and attacking from the opposite direction. Normally, you would never attempt a maneuver that exposes your back to your enemy even for a split second. But this guy's just so **lethargic**!

As you expected, your foe is completely unprepared for an attack from the opposite side, and he falls to the ground before he can even think to block. Maybe that'll knock some sense into him.

He shakes his head from side to side rapidly for a second. He should be on his toes now. He wouldn't have lasted ten seconds on the field of battle with that sorry display.

He stumbles to his feet, and then brandishes his spear out in front of him. He starts to run forward, closing the distance you put between the two of you. Tsk tsk. Does he really think that's going to work?

You stand with your left side facing him, and hold your sword out in front of you, tip touching the ground. He's really charging straight at you. A feint, perhaps? Nope, he's giving it his all. Man, this guy can motor! Alrighty then…

At the right instant, you swing your sword up in front of you in an anticlockwise arc. The flat of your waster catches the end of his spear, pushing it aside. Unfortunately for him, he's still carried forward by his momentum. You pull your sword up such that his head and neck pass under it. THUD! Down it comes again on his upper back. Since he was caught off his guard, it didn't take very much from you to make him taste the training room floor. Knockdown count: 2.

You marvel at the technology you hold in your hands. Even if your waster was made of the lightest wood, your foe there could still be looking at a broken spine. Luckily for him, the red-light marvel is capable of spreading the force of the blow out through that entire side of his body. All he feels is a firm push downwards on every square inch of his back. Until he actually HITS the ground, that is. That shit must HURT.

Oh, would you look at that, he's fine. Even better, now he's ANGRY! Hey, it's not your fault you're so much better than him! What's that? He wants to go again? Hah! You wonder how many times you can kick this chump to the curb in THREE MINUTES.

CLASH! He swings his spear at you with care this time, and you block it with your sword. A loud fizzle can be heard while your weapons are connected. Small red particles fly off the points of contact. A proper struggle is taking place here.

Would ya look at that, this guy isn't completely useless after all! He's got some strength to him! You take half a step towards him, and reverse your weapons so that yours is on top. It's much easier to push down than to push up. You strain in effort, and manage to pin his spear down. You rush forward and knock him in the chest with your waster once more. That's three knockdowns. Dominated, chucklehead! You're not even breaking a sweat! Woooooo!

* * *

Okay, so that first fight was just to blow off a little steam. After that third knockdown, the guy had had enough. He proceeded to put up a pretty solid defense until the match was over. After that, you mellowed out a little, and started taking your opponents more seriously. Your sights are still set on 2216.

You observed his fighting style in the last block, when it was your group's turn to spectate. He's quite proficient, and has a lunge attack that's as fast as lightning. And now it's your group's turn to fight his.

You seek him out right away and challenge him with a gesture. He looks around at the other members of your group. As if he'd rather fight someone ELSE instead! He sees that everyone else has found a partner already. He shrugs, and then turns back to you.

You've just about had it with this guy. What even is his deal? Even NOW he likes to pretend you don't exist! Is it because he's from an older unit that he thinks he can just look down on you like this? You're gonna teach this guy some basic decency, even if you have to BEAT it into him!

BZZZZZ! You barely see his sword coming. Dang, this guy can lunge fast! It's like he was pretending not to be ready so he could get the jump on you! You move your sword to deflect his, but it's too late! It takes you right in the chest, and you fall backwards.

Easy, 23. You've gotta keep your head if you want to beat this guy. You jump back to your feet, and ready yourself. This freakin' guy! Now he's leaning to one side with his waster supporting him. He flashes you a look, as if to say "Oh? Are you ready now?" You give your waster a quick twirl, and assume a ready position. Ten seconds in. Now the fight can truly begin! You give him an expectant glance. He rolls his eyes, and then readies himself.

You think it best to start with a feint. You raise your sword above your head, as if to attack. As you thought, this guy was only going to lunge forward again at the first sign of your guard dropping. This time, though, you're ready to sidestep. You had no intention of following through with that attack; you only needed him to THINK you did. In any case, he misses completely, and stumbles forward a little.

You don't even go in for the counter-attack. It's YOUR turn to mess with HIM. You assume a similar stance to the one he took. Oh? Is he ready yet? You'll just give him a moment to recover from his little failure. He glares at you with the force of a thousand mighty fires.

A display like that must have made him pretty mad. Naturally, he would want to hit you with as much force as he can muster. He sees you taunting him, so he must also realise that he doesn't have a lot of time before you ready yourself again. His build and right-handedness would suggest that his strongest quick attack is a two-handed downwards slash coming diagonally from above his left shoulder. If you're right, he should attempt this move instinctively and as soon as is possible. While he thinks you're unprepared.

You subtly cross your hands over the waster's handle to prepare for the incoming attack, and assume your most stable stance. You wait for his hands to bring the waster over and behind his head.

You perform a technique that has served you well once before. You bring your hands just to the left of your head, with your sword pointed downwards to your right. As your blades collide, his sword slides down the length of yours, and ends up hitting the ground to the right of you. You then deliver a golf swing into the side of his head. Boink. He's seeing stars, and you're at one knockdown each.

When he gets up, you can tell that he's making an effort to not explode in rage. This gives you a deep and devilish sense of satisfaction. He composes himself once more. Based on the look in his eye, and the amount of time left, there's only going to be one more knockdown in this match. You or him.

He looks prepared for literally anything you could throw at him. Right now, he's sizing you up. Looking for your weakness. Calculating his next move.

You are hesitant to make the first move. You try another feint, but he doesn't fall for it. He doesn't seem to be the type to be fooled by the same thing twice. If that's the case, you'll try for some tentative attacks. Moves that won't leave you vulnerable. Strikes that you expect him to block.

You make a quick, shallow slash, directed at his front. Even if he does try his lightning thrust again, you're prepared to parry it. He parries with a shallow slash of his own. You respond with an oppositely directed slash. You clash swords for a few seconds, not really expecting to get through one another's defences in this way. You're both still looking…

You go for a thrust, just because it's not what he would expect. You reserve your balance, though, keeping your full weight out of the strike. Naturally, he deflects it to his left, and goes for a counter-attack. Since you were expecting him to deflect (there not being enough time for a full-out dodge), you're prepared for his counter-attack.

It comes from the point where his sword is to the point where your sword isn't. Once you keep that fundamental fact in mind, it's easy to bring yours back to where you need it to avoid a humiliating loss in the exchanges.

Ah, but you can tell that he underestimated you once more. He thought that you would put your all into that thrust. He deflected with a little bit more force than he needed to. That's a split second longer that his sword travels away from where he needs to hit you. A simple movement of the wrists puts your sword between his blade and your neck. You block just in time. He draws back and strikes again, hoping to make the best of the situation. And now you two are struggling sword-to-sword. Time to find out who's stronger.

It looks like you're very evenly matched in the strength department, but 16 has more endurance! After several seconds of struggling all-out, your strength starts to wear out. No. You're not going to just stand here and let him overpower you. You know when you're matched for strength. Time to rely once more on the unexpected.

You bend your knees a little. Your opponent naturally takes this as a sign of weakness, and pushes harder. You summon the last reserves of your arm strength to re-gain a precious inch of ground in the struggle. You duck forward to the left, slipping under both swords with less than half an inch to spare.

Having disengaged from the struggle, you now find yourself with your back to your opponent. You spin around to face him again. He's also recovering from your unforeseen maneuver.

You swing your sword at his with all your might. His grip falters, and the blade slips from his grasp and clatters to the floor. You collect yourself once more. With both hands on your waster, you draw back, and then lunge forward into him with everything you've got.

Your enemy flies back a good two and a half paces. The buzzer sounds. The fight is over. You're just about ready to collapse. You drop to one knee, and use your waster for support. You tilt your head up to look at your pratfallen adversary. Exhausted, he drops down so that he's lying flat on his back. You stand up again.

Clap. Clap. Clap. You wonder who is clapping. Clap. Clap. Clap. You look toward the source of the sound. It's your captain. He's applauding. Slowly, yet sincerely. It dawns on you that all the other fights stopped about two minutes into yours. Everyone else has been watching your match, and giving you two plenty of space. This. Never. Happens.

The captain writes something on the wall for you. Number twenty-three. (You know he's serious, because he wrote your name longhand). Congratulations are in order. Why don't you take the rest of the day off?

This, for the record, also never happens.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Be The Other Guy

You are now the other guy, two weeks later. Your name is 2322. A long time ago, you used to be a SOLDIER in the mighty DERSE ARMY. You left behind your home, your friends, and everything you owned for a life of PEACEFUL AGRICULTURE. You are currently standing a distance away from the front of your house, and can see the results of your labor in your field of vision.

The kingdom, in exchange for your promise to grow a certain quantity of food every four days, has granted you a sizeable PLOT OF LAND on which to live and work. To the left, you see your WHEAT PATCH. Its majestic green is split in two to make a path down the middle to your house. To the right, you see your smaller but equally important GOURD FIELD.

The left side of your wheat crop is currently only a day old, but the right side of the crop is two days old. Four days after planting, the beautiful green wheat turns golden-brown and becomes ready for harvesting. In the meantime, it has to be watered and weeded every day.

Your gourd crop is three days old. The gourds are still green, and only about half the size that they'll be when they're fully grown. Gourds have a six-day growth cycle, but they're big and delicious! It's boring to just eat bread all the time! When you first started out, you only grew enough gourds to fill your quota, so you had to eat only bread all the time. You started growing a lot more gourds so that you could eat some yourself.

At the left end of your wheat field, up on a little hill, is your SCARECROW. You tied two poles together to form a cross, and stuck the longer one into the ground. Over top of it, you draped your old purple-and-red UNIFORM. It serves you no other purpose; you now proudly wear your purple VILLEIN ROBES. An EMPTY CAN sits atop the cross, serving as the head of your silent sentry.

As a final touch, you fashioned a sash out of some strips of white cloth you found in your house. You figured your scarecrow deserved to have a sash. After all, he takes care of your livelihood when you're not around.

Finally, there is your house. It looks like a big can tipped on its side. But it's built into the ground so it doesn't roll around with you in it. That wouldn't be good. On the inside, it's three paces long by six paces wide. You have your bed in the back corner on the left, farthest from the door. A wide window occupies most of the wall opposite your bed. It's maybe four paces wide by one pace tall. It has an awning on the outside; quite lovely to sit under. You're growing some potted plants in the windowsill. You like to have some green around you everywhere you look.

The rest of the wall with your bed on it houses your modest storage space. You have some shelving up above the bed, with a chest of drawers beside it. There is also a small footlocker that slides under your bed, but you're not quite sure what to put in it yet.

Ah, how you love your new life out in the countryside. You work for most of the day, and rest for the remainder. Nobody tries to murder you, or shoot you with arrows, or tell you to hurt anyone. You've got a pretty good life.

You find it **does** get a bit lonely out here. It's just you, your crops, and Brigadier-General Canningsworth. Your scarecrow, that is. That's his name and rank. If he's vigilant enough, he just might make Field Marshal. That's what you keep telling him, anyway. But it's really just an incentive for him to work harder. That particular rank is a little farther down the road than you lead him to believe sometimes. You wonder if that makes you a bad person.

You're only kidding, of course. You know he's just a can, some sticks, and your old army uniform. You don't **really** tell him anything. Because he can't respond. But it's fun to pretend sometimes.

You wish your best friend 23 could visit more often. But you know they're keeping him very busy back in the army. He hasn't been by the farm in a few days. He must be out on a mission someplace far away. The world's just so much bigger now than it used to be. It's a little scary.

The first time 23 came to visit was two days after you moved here. You'd come to the castle during his break that day to meet him. He looked pretty happy to see you. You'd been working through his break the day before without even realising it. There was so much extra work on the first day of the job, what with the tilling and plowing and sowing and watering.

After you met him at the castle, you led him to your farm so he would know where it is. Out the door, down the stairs, and through the courtyard. Step outside the walls, then follow the moat around to the back of the castle. Turn right after about a hundred and thirty-four paces from the castle's back wall. Walk across the valley floor, and go up the ridge. Arrive at the back wall of the farmhouse.

After you showed him, he would come to visit every day that he could. Which, luckily, was most days. Sometimes, though, he stops visiting for a couple of days. That's when he's on a mission somewhere else. Like right now, apparently.

You're worried sick about him. On days like today, it's hard to eat, or sleep, or even work. You just don't know what you would do without him! Who would come to visit you, and brighten up your day? Who would come to you with their worries or problems, and seek your counsel? Who would be your best friend if anything happened to him?

And the worst part is, you won't even know. No one's going to come up and **tell** you when he's killed in action. He could be dying right now. Bleeding. Spear through his chest. Pinned to the ground. Splintered carapace; blood pouring out of him. Taking his last breath before he's dead like so many others!

How many days? How long are you going to wait until you just… decide that he's not coming to visit anymore? Four days? Six? Ten? How long do these missions usually go on for? How long **can** they go on for? Do they go all the way to Prospit Castle and back? Maybe swing by and try to take Fort Scariosus on the way over?

You sigh, and put down your watering can. It feels like there's a lump in your throat. It's no use trying to work when you're like this. Luckily for you, there's an amazing grassy patch not too far from you. Softest stuff you've ever rolled around in.

It is here that you take a quick respite from your worries. You lie on your front, arms all askew. You inhale the grassy aroma deep into your lungs. It's the only thing you can count on to calm you down without fail.

What are you so getting so worked up over? This is 23 you're talking about! That guy can more than take care of himself! Of course he's coming back. It's just not like him to lose a fight. Somehow, you think he's gonna be all right.

You turn over and lie on your back. The sky's rather cloudy today. You remember how 23 just can't get enough of this big ball of blue. It's scary for you to think about. That there can be something that's so big, it just covers all the land. You wonder what could possibly be above it, up there. Like where you all came from. Just how small **are** you?

A shiver runs down your spine. You decide to focus on what's much closer. These clouds… so beautiful, how they hang up there just so. Sometimes they show you things. But only if you look at them for a while. The last time they showed you anything was a couple of days ago.

Two figures of white, on the deck of a large ship. But they didn't look like pawns. Not pawns you've ever seen before, at least. There was a man with a fancy hat, and a woman with a pretty pink scarf. They were holding hands. It was a little confusing.

You guess that some of the pawns back at the castle were female. Most were male, like you and 23. But there's no real difference, is there? It's just an arbitrary assignment that doesn't mean anything. Why should it matter if someone is male or female? It doesn't change who they are as a pawn.

* * *

Having been apart from the system for so long, you have found yourself really questioning what the fighting is all about. Your king and the enemy king have been fighting each other for longer than anyone can remember. And that used to be a good enough explanation for you. If your king says to fight, then you must fight! …right?

And then they told you that you were supposed to covet the land's destruction. That's what the whole war's really been about. But that's just silly! You don't want to destroy the land! Why would anyone want to do that? It doesn't do you, or anyone else, any good at all!

What about your old peers? The rank-and-file soldiers, like you were? Do _they_ want to destroy the land? You know that 23 doesn't. You guys talked about this in private. Neither of you do. But you'd never talk about that stuff with the average pawn. What would happen to you if word got out that you were sympathising with the enemy? You shudder to think of the punishment for such treason.

Maybe there's something wrong with you and 23. Maybe you guys are the only pawns in the entire Derse kingdom who don't want to destroy Skaia. Oh, wait, there's also that farmer guy, 1836. You guys must be the only three pawns in the…

Hmmmmm. Maybe the rank-and-file pawns _don't_ want to destroy Skaia, after all. Maybe everyone just pretends that they do, because they assume that everyone else does. They could just be afraid of what would happen if they _didn't_ hate Skaia, so they just choose to. It's easier that way.

Well, what about the captains? Surely _they_ must hate Skaia with every fibre of their being! After all, they're the ones who enforce order and military structure in all this! They're the ones who're in charge!

But hold on. The captains aren't the ones in charge. Even they have to report to those mysterious pawns upstairs. You wonder what secrets the upper levels of the castle may hold, such that ordinary pawns aren't even _allowed_ up there!

Maybe the captains _don't_ hate Skaia. After all, they were once rank-and-file pawns, too! So if the rank-and-file pawns don't hate Skaia, then perhaps the captains don't, either! But the pawns upstairs **definitely** hate Skaia. That's where all the orders come from, after all! And the orders all relate to Derse winning the war, which means Skaia's destruction.

Now, wait just a minute! The pawns upstairs aren't really in charge, either! Even _they_ report to a higher authority! And the highest authority you know of is the King! The pawns upstairs **definitely** get some kind of orders from the King himself!

Now, you're not sure, but you think it might be possible that **some** of the pawns upstairs **might** not completely hate Skaia, either. After all, they have to do what they're told. And you've heard stories of certain captains going upstairs, never to be seen on the lower levels again.

And if there are **captains** who don't hate Skaia, then surely there are a **few** pawns upstairs who don't hate Skaia, either. It only makes sense! Maybe the fear of punishment for treason extends a ways up the chain of command.

But the _King_. He **definitely** hates Skaia. He's been fighting to destroy it for longer than even **he** can remember! Deep down, he must hate to even have to **stand** on Skaian soil! But he bears it all the same, because it's the only way he can fight to destroy it!

Now here's a crazy thought. It makes you feel silly for even **thinking** it! What if… there was a **slim** possibility that… somewhere inside…

The King didn't _really_ hate Skaia so much after all. What if, after spending so much time and energy fighting, and commanding others to fight, all to blast Skaia to smithereens…

It would just make him feel really, completely silly for him to call the whole thing off? What if he came to like the world over time? It's completely possible. With every change it's made so far, the Battlefield has just become more and more beautiful! It's grown trees and grass and water and hills and plains and fields! Maybe the King could have grown to like it all, just a little?

But how weird would it be if he said "On second thought, maybe the forces of darkness **don't** covet the land's destruction, after all. We'll stop fighting you now. Sorry for the misunderstanding. No hard feelings?"

You think that would be pretty weird. Maybe he just doesn't know how to say it. There **is** no good way to say something like that. What if fighting the enemy is all the King knows how to do? With all his subordinates behind him, everyone must expect him to think and behave a certain way. What would everyone think of their King if he were to give up the fight?

No! That's all a load of hogwash! What kind of guy would let something like that get to that point? If he **really** loved Skaia, he would have stopped all the fighting a long time ago.

Pawns are **dying** out there! Hundreds of them! Every day! The King **knows** that! That's his **life**! He **sees** them give their lives for him, every day in his Haunt! Does he even **care**? Do those pawns even **matter** to him? Of **course** not! Why **would** they?

The **only** reason that that guy **insists** on sending **thousands** of pawns from **both** sides to their deaths is because he **hates** Skaia and everything in it with all the force of ten thousand raging suns! There's simply **no** other explanation for any of this! After all, **he's **the one who started all of this!

**Why** can't the Black King just leave well enough alone? The Kingdom has space travel, for crying out loud! Of **all** the places he could be, **why** does he have to be on the Battlefield? Why can't the King just pack up and leave, if he hates it here so much? Can't he just go back to his palace on Derse and be miserable there? What is he still **doing** here?

You **HATE** the King! There! You've said it! YouhatetheKingyouhatetheKing youhatetheKing! Of **ALL** the possible courses of action he could take, **WHY** does he have to interfere with your **beautiful **land? You don't **care** if you're being disloyal! You don't give a **shit** about treason! You **know** what you believe, and you're never going to let **anyone** tell you any different!

As a matter of fact, you think you'd go so far as to say you hate **ALL** Kings! Who would just take charge of people like that? Who would boss them around, and make them kill, and send them to their deaths, just because they said so? That's no way to be a leader!

What does it even **mean**, to be a King? That you're **bigger** than everyone else? That you're **older** than everyone else? That you've got special **powers**, unlike everyone else? That **you** were here **first**, and so everyone else should just do what you say? That doesn't make a **lick** of sense!

Sure, people need a leader to tell them what to do. But what gives **anyone** the right to boss people around? You think that people should get to **choose** who their leader is. They should take a vote!

That way, everyone would have a leader who wants what they want. They would see who **really** wants to destroy Skaia, and who is just pretending, out of fear of the **King**! If someone was nice, and good at leading, and wanted what everyone else wanted, then they would get voted for, and would be put in charge! Wouldn't that be great?

You sigh. What's the use? You would never be able to tell people about this idea. Because that's against the King, and you would get punished, and locked up, and no one would ever listen to you! You just wish that the world wasn't exactly the way it was. Everyone should be able to tell their ideas without being locked up for them. Even if some people don't like what they're saying.

You think you've finally figured it out, after all these days of living here. This world is a rotten place to live. All the war, and fighting, and bloodshed, and you can't even speak out against it. And there's nothing you can do to change it. Maybe some day, one side will win the war. And then what? If you lose, you die. If you win, then Skaia loses, and you lose anyway.

What's the point of any of this?


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Rise Up

You're not quite sure what wakes you up first. The abnormal light hitting your eyes, the sound of loud crackles in your ear, or the feel of strange heat on your shell. It's actually the acrid smoke filling your lungs that does the job. You flip the fuck out of bed, and fall on the floor as you realise what is happening. You grab the tablet beside your bed, and bolt out the door.

It's as you feared. Your fields. Your beautiful fields. The grass you've worked so hard to spread and grow! Being swallowed up by a dancing, shimmering red! It burns so bright, you can't find a single spot of green!

There is, however, one break in the red yards. The path between fields, which you left fallow for ease of access to the other side of your property. It invites you to walk across it. Despite the raging red on either side, you know you will not be harmed if you do.

You feel the heat radiate towards you from the right and left sides as you walk across the path. It's as if you are being cooked alive. And yet no harm has come to you. The flames aren't close enough to actually burn you. You come to the edge and turn around.

Your house. Your home. Brigadier-General Canningsworth. The inexorable red spreads over everything you hold dear. Sure, you **could** try to pump enough water to save whatever fragment of your lifestyle still exists. Or you could just let it all burn to the ground. You lie back on an incline behind you, and tilt your head to the sky. You close your eyes.

You had a dream like this once. Actually, you've been having it pretty often lately. The black-and-white world around you was covered in green. Like one big grassy patch. It was beautiful. Even the castle walls had green all over them. You wished you could make **your** Skaia this green.

But then, a single spark of red. It spread out over the green. Capturing it. Changing it forever. The green became red. The more the red grew, the faster it spread. The awful red menace spread all over the world. You couldn't stop it. No one could stop it.

When all was said and done, all had become red and black. You looked down. All was black. You looked up. All was red. Everywhere you looked, just black and red. Black and red. Black and red. You woke up in a cold sweat. The same dream. The same cold sweat. Every time.

You open your eyes once more, and sit up straight. There it is. Your farm. Everything you have worked for. Rapidly losing existence. You sit back and watch the fires burn. You watch your house lose its integrity and collapse on itself. You watch the ruins smolder. You watch everything that was red fade to black. And then you keep watching. There's nothing left to watch happen. All has gone still. All has gone quiet. Still, you keep watching.

It feels like there's something missing. Not your fields and home; that stuff's obviously gone! Something else. You can't quite put your finger on it. You feel… Well, you don't feel much of anything at all. But that's not what's bothering you. It's just…

For some reason… you don't think you'll be able to feel… what's the word… Peaceful… again for quite some time.

* * *

You walk across your ashen fields to the place where your modest house once stood. Lying among the rubble, one item is mostly intact. Strange, how the only surviving possession of your entire estate… would be **red**. You hold in your hands the pointed flag that once flew atop your house. The same sort of flag that flies atop all villein farmhouses. The flames must not have reached it where it was.

In time, you took the flag to mean something profound. A flag is something that is known to fly atop castles. There are many flags of many shapes and sizes atop Derse Castle right now. All are in deep purple. You imagine that a similar myriad of golden flags also fly atop Prospit Castle.

And if flags are meant to fly atop castles, then that means, up until very recently, you had a **castle** of your very own. It may not have been much, but it was undoubtedly yours. It came with a price in the form of a promise to produce for the kingdom. But it was still very much yours.

Simply put, that which you hold in your hands- the only thing that survived the fire- is your freedom. This is it. You don't have to take orders from anyone. What a **thing** for a pawn to be thinking! Have you lost your mind?

Maybe so. But it still doesn't change the fact that you are free. With a flag of your own to prove it. Sure, it's got a few holes in it. And it's stained with ash and soot throughout. But it is undoubtedly. Undisputedly. Yours.

You feel compelled to take your flag, and walk up the ridge behind where your house stood. From this vantage point, you can see almost all of Castle Valley. Hundreds of figures in black and white are fighting with no structure whatsoever. It's an unmitigated bloodbath.

The grass and trees of the valley floor are ablaze. The ground itself seems to have caught fire in many places. What an affront to the peaceful world you now yearn for.

An invasion. The white forces are trying to take over the castle, or otherwise do as much damage as they possibly can. They must have set your farm and many others ablaze with flaming arrows. To cut the food supply and demoralize, no doubt.

Earlier, you would have resented the pawns responsible. Now, you find such a phrase to be a paradox in itself. No **pawn** is responsible for any of this death or destruction! **Pawns** didn't start the war! They're all just following orders from above. Orders from their **kings**.

You make your way down the slope. You can't do anything from up here. You need to get closer to the action. Most of the fighting is happening in the middle of the valley, farthest from the valley walls. The winding rivers divide the conflict into distinct areas.

You walk across the valley floor with only your flag to protect you, passing the remains of the recently deceased along the way. Each and every death is tragic; an abomination! Black, white, or otherwise!

You climb a grassless knoll in the middle of the valley. Nearby pawns aggrieve each other under the orders of their wretched kings. The score who fight before you now represent a mere fraction of the warring masses. The sight fills you with an indescribable rage unfamiliar to your kind. But the time for rage has passed. It is time to act.

You grip the tattered flag in your left hand with unprecedented resolve. You know what you must do. You walk to the edge of the knoll, and hold your banner out to the side for all to see. Sure, it may not be much to look at. Granted, it's a little rough around the edges. But by Skaia, you'll be damned if it's not **yours**.

You regard the small group of skirmishing pawns below you once more. Only twenty of them all told. You stand tall, with a flag to the side and an unwavering forward gaze.

Here you are. Standing on the edge. The pawn who's lost everything. All you've got now is a tattered flag, a comms tablet, and the clothes off your back. That, and a crazy idea with an even crazier voice in the back of your head shouting at you to make it happen.

Your heart is pounding. Your flag is flying. Your grip, unfaltering. Your gaze, unwavering. Your eyes are stinging. Your ears are ringing. Your head is aching. Your mind is shaking. After a life of orders and routines, you feel like **this** is the only thing you were ever meant to do.

A pawn on the moor below gains the upper hand in single combat with another. His alignment is irrelevant. His color, disregarded.

A sword falls to the ground below and smotes in the soil. Its owner, disarmed.

A self-proclaimed victor goes to finish a prostrate adversary. A lone figure above gives him pause. A battle, suspended.

A violet-clad villein beckons all present to join his cause. A new flag is regarded. A faction, created.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Storm the Castle

You now hold the attention and intrigue of roughly twenty pawns of mixed color. They line themselves up in front of you, and look to you expectantly. It would seem they have an idea of what you stand for. To the extent that they've stopped killing each other, at least.

You can communicate with words and clarify your intentions later. For now, there is something very important that you all have to do. You lead your followers to ford the shallow river separating you from the castle and the greater conflicts nearer to it.

In the midst of absolute chaos, any presence of order or structure stands out rather quickly. And so it was that your ensemble of mixed-color pawns at peace with each other was noticed by the warring soldiers on the edge, and subsequently, the middle, of the great conflict around Derse Castle.

Never in your life have you seen a miracle quite so astounding as the gradual pacification of two warring armies. No orders were given by the conventional authorities. The masses simply recognized the creation of a new movement. **Your** movement.

If you had to hazard a guess, you would say that these several hundred pawns would march under your command. But the important thing is that they're now docile. As you approach, the pawns at the edge of the crowd make room for you and your initial party to pass through. As you do so, you find that the size of your following seems to grow exponentially.

You make your way to the castle gates, and stop at the drawbridge. The bridge is up, leaving the river around the castle walls to block your entrance. After all, the castle must be protected in times of battle. But the battle here is over now. The drawbridge attendant gives you a meaningful look from his perch on top of the gatehouse, followed by a slow salute. A look of recognition? Of gratitude? Perhaps he, too, once dreamed of the fighting coming to an end.

The attendant disappears from sight. The drawbridge slowly comes down, and the gate slowly opens as a winch is turned from within the gatehouse. You turn to your multitude, and raise your flag. You hold out a hand, palm showing with upturned fingers. You wish for them to wait where they are. After all, they wouldn't all fit in that little castle.

You cross the courtyard alone, and climb the familiar steps in a similar fashion. You're back.

You enter the castle's high-ceilinged main foyer, and walk across to the main desk. Using your tablet, you matter-of-factly tell the clerk that the castle is now under your control.

The clerk has had a long day of filing papers, stamping forms, and whatever other nonsense is expected of a clerk. Not to mention having to go through all the stresses associated with a full-scale attempted Prospitian invasion. And now a farmer comes in all smug and cocky, telling him the castle belongs to him now.

He recognizes **you**! You're one of the hoodlums responsible for what the rank-and-file pawns affectionately refer to as Project Candemonium. Oh, that mix-up was just so **funny**, wasn't it? How you and yours switched around the labels of **every **can in the kitchen! Even **funnier** it was that no one actually **caught** you doing it, so you didn't get punished for it!

Oh, but that 2213 was **so very eager** to brag about it to anyone who'd listen! How it was his idea, and how 22 and 23 did **such** a bang-up job of it, and how he **just** might do it again in a few weeks, **just** to spice things up a bit!

Do you even know? Does anyone even** think** about how much **paperwork** has to be filed for an incident like that? The incident reports **alone** took an entire morning to fill out! It's **hard** being a clerk in this bureaucracy, and no one understands! There's paperwork for things you could never even **imagine**, let alone find it in your mischievous little vasculatory system to carry out!

And **now** you're back! With **more** silly little games, and **more** silly little jokes! What's **that**, you say? The castle is **yours** now? How delightful! What**ever** can this humble little clerk do for you, Master? Shall he brew some fresh beans for your drinking pleasure? How about a lovely **foot massage**?

A stunning execution of Gambit Schema: Clerkkind – SARCASTIC DIATRIBE. Truly you are dealing with a very experienced, highly leveled FILING CLERK. Months of empty promises and broken dreams have produced a bitter and callous KEEPER OF FORMS. His wit is as sharp as the pencils he works down to the nubs in pent-up frustration. You should be very careful in deciding your next move.

You find it prudent to keep this encounter as short as possible. And then you realize that you don't actually need anything from this grouchy fellow. You are, in fact, only informing him of recent events as a basic courtesy. You give him a new message.

At this moment, more than five hundred pawns of both colors are lined up around the castle walls. As you speak, many of them are occupying the main courtyard. Simply put, your forces have breached the castle's perimeter, and are knocking at the front door, waiting for your order to enter.

The clerk maintains his irritated expression as he skims your message. Five hundred, you say? How **delightful**! And what, pray tell, is this game you're playing? Are you staging a **coup**? Are you having a quaint little **invasion**? He grows tired of all this messing about. You should run along back to your farm like a good little peasant.

Ouch! A rare technique to find in a clerkkind arsenal! A display of IDLE PEDANTRY, level 2! Clearly he doesn't believe you. To be honest, you were mostly bluffing, anyway. Granted, there are a great deal of pawns outside who would follow your basic instruction to a point, but you have no idea if your following would go so far as to take over a castle for you. Luckily, there's not really anyone to take it over **from** (aside from a filing clerk armed with snide remarks), making it more of an occupation of sorts.

Still, you must go and fetch some of your numbers. The clerk simply does not believe you. In fact, you may as well go ahead and let yourselves in. Your white-collar adversary can suit himself. But you feel you must get the last word in. You place your tablet down on the table for him, and turn for the door.

The fact that the castle is under new management is an immutable fact that you are stating for the record. It does not mean a coup is what is taking place here.

* * *

Before you go inside, though, there's one basic thing you need to take care of. You look for a familiar style of green-and-orange hat. You seek out a pawn with such a hat, and, sure enough, the black star pinned to his uniform confirms his captainhood. You explain to him that you need a tablet that can write on walls. He hands you his own.

The model of writing tablet issued to captains features a "project" function. Once a compatible surface area is selected and enabled, all writing done on the tablet also shows up on the selected area. It's how the captains communicate to many pawns at a time. And it's exactly what you need right now.

You select the main castle building's wall, and get to writing. Your message stands for all to see.

Pawns of the battlefield! Your name is 2322. You hereby renounce all ties to the Kingdom of Derse, and claim your independence as a free pawn. Let there be no more fighting between pawns! You hold nothing but love for Skaia and all her beauty. And you feel that no pawn in their right mind would mean her any harm or ill will.

All have been lied to by the black king! But now, you speak the truth! For the only being who covets Skaia's destruction is the King himself! Your fellow Dersites know this to be true! Prospitians, hear this message!

Your movement seeks peace throughout the land. No more will pawns have to kill or be slain in service of kings! No more will friends be lost in senseless conflict!

Listen well, Prospit. This is not surrender or weakness of Dersites. This is the creation of an independent faction. You are all leaving your respective kingdoms in equal part. But fear not- kingdoms are irrelevant. All that matters is the absolute freedom of each and every pawn standing here today, and of all pawns to come!

You march on the Black King's Haunt in an hour's time. Let the able and willing rest and prepare for what's ahead. Bring the wounded down to the castle infirmary, and have them tended to. Let those who would oppose your movement speak their piece to you in private. You will hear all who wish to speak. You only ask that no one try to hinder or derail this movement. It is in all of your best interests.

With that, you leave your forces to their own devices. You just realized that there is something very important you have to take care of inside the castle. But you need a small troupe of loyal pawns. For insurance. As pawns enter the foyer, you select a few at random, and approach them personally. You ask if you can trust them. When they nod, you ask them to stay with you. You get three pawns of each color in this way. Just to show that you're impartial.

You think to get one more of each color. That should suffice for what you need to do. You're scanning the crowd that filters in, when a face you haven't seen in a long time presents itself.

By Skaia. He's alive. And is a captain now, it would seem. The hat and star aren't what you'd have expected, and yet there they are. 23. You thought you'd lost him. And now here he is, coming right towards you. A joyous reunion ensues.

You don't have much time. You explain to him that you need loyal followers. He nods in understanding. You seek out one more white pawn, and assemble your followers.

You instruct them to stay close, and ready their weapons. You're going upstairs, and you're not sure what you're going to find.

You pass the main desk, and smile at the clerk, desperately trying to pick his jaw up from the floor. His flabbergasted state feels like the sweetest gourd of the harvest to your psyche.

You're going to be frank with your following. You're pretty sure there are some pawns upstairs who may not agree with your liberal ideals. They have probably caught wind by now of what is going on, and they may go so far as to put up a fight. If they are well-prepared, they will try to ambush any who come upstairs, and the stairs themselves would make the perfect spot to launch a surprise attack. Consider yourselves thoroughly warned about stairs.

The nine of you creep slowly up the stairs with the utmost caution. At the point where the stairs level off and bend around, you carefully poke your head around the corner to look for threats. Finding none, you resume your ascension.

It's oddly quiet up there. Perhaps they intend to use the entrance as a chokepoint, and leap out only after the entire party is visible. Or perhaps there's no one there at all.

You find yourself in a large office. In the center of the room, a holographic projector displays a large three-dimensional tactical map of the battlefield. It spins lazily in the air.

The wall to the left is lined with rows of flat display monitors, but they seem to be inactive. The wall to the right is lined with magnificent artwork depicting scenes of well-known battles from legend. The king of Derse seems to be a popular subject in said artwork. You begin your search immediately.

If any top brass were hiding behind the desks and chairs of this office, they would have surely made their move by now. Regardless, you're covering a lot of ground, and the area seems to be clear. But you still haven't found what you're looking for…

Aha! To the left of the entrance, a large doorway is marked "Transportalization Chamber." You suspected that such technology existed up here. You often wondered how pawns that you'd never seen before could come down from upstairs, then disappear back up there without a trace. Mail carriers, agents of the kingdom, even regular captains! This chamber must be a gateway to the rest of the kingdom.

And that's why you have to deactivate it at once. It would be a major problem if the kingdom started sending agents and assassins at you to derail your revolution. Because that's when dead rebels start piling up, and no one wants that to happen.

In the chamber, there are long rows of round grey platforms with what appear to be snowflake fractal emblems on them in white. Two rows on the left side, and two on the right. Sixteen transportalizers in all. Some of them have placards above them. "LOWAS," "LOHAC," "LOLAR," "LOFAF," "Derse Palace," even "Prospit Castle." You weren't expecting that last destination. But you guess even the top brass of the opposing sides must have to meet each other sometimes.

You wonder if the brass that were here escaped by transportalizing to somewhere else. Maybe they saw your group coming, and went to warn the Palace in the homeland! If that's the case, you need to decommission these machines immediately.

You need to have your men sweep this office for the chamber's control panel. Have them search high and low. You'll tear the place apart if you have to. You're not sure if you can find it in time, and you have absolutely no idea what it looks like, but you're sure as hell not going to let some scumbag agents come a-stabbing at your door without putting up a good oh would you look at that it's right there.

A big panel glows on the far side of the chamber. A sign above it reads "Emergency Transport Lockdown." The panel features a big breaker-style switch, currently in the "up" position. You hurry over to it, and hastily pull it to the "down" position. The panel lights stop glowing, and the whole chamber's lights shut off. That should do it, you hope.

* * *

Having dealt with your initial concerns, you lead your group back downstairs and dismiss them. You and 23 have some catching up to do.

He had been promoted to the rank of Captain shortly after his most recent campaign. 0848 had told him that no pawn with as much combat skill as he did would stay rank-and-file for long. That he had a rare gift, and reminded the old captain of himself in his earlier days.

Being a captain wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He took on a lot of responsibility, and had to learn quickly how to fill the role he was given. A lot of lives were in his hands. On top of that, he had a lot less free time than he had before. He was also discouraged from leaving the castle at all on his breaks. As if the top brass wanted to keep a close eye on him.

You're just glad he's alive. You thought for sure he'd been killed in battle after all this time. Turns out he was being watched. Leaving the valley at all could make certain pawns suspect him of treason. Of consorting with the enemy in secret.

You must go to your pawns. In these first hours, it's essential that you make yourself as available to your followers as you possibly can. A crowd can be unstable, and if you want to keep their support and attention, you'd better be well prepared to work for it.

You're asking a great deal from them. Asking them to work with their long-standing enemies. Asking the Dersites to betray their king and country. Asking the Prospitians to follow the orders of an enemy pawn deep in the heart of enemy territory. You're surprised this many pawns are still here. That they haven't just gone back to killing each other. You remind yourself that that's a good thing. That it's all for the greater good.

You must oversee the current affairs at the castle. You've taken over as its ruler. You must impose rule over the pawns within, otherwise order will break down. A lot can happen in one hour. Perhaps you'll go oversee the treatment of the wounded. If you give some orders now, pawns will be accustomed to taking them from you, and should be more likely to listen to you when it counts.

A group of pawns seeks your audience. They are no less than ten in number. One who acts as a spokespawn for the group gestures to your captain's tablet. He wishes to converse on a public channel, so that all may read what is said. You hand the tablet over graciously. This can only be another chance to reaffirm your authority and articulate your views. You have nothing to hide.

He says that many pawns see no reason why they should trust you. They merely saw you pacify a small group, and were curious enough to stop the fighting, just to see what your intentions were. Now that they have, they question whether or not this is just a big power gambit on your part.

You need to respond quickly. Your motives have just been questioned on a public forum. Those words are up on the foyer wall for all to see. There's no time for hesitation.

From the time you first woke up, you were told to hate Skaia. And so you did. All the other Derselings were told the same thing. And so **they** did. You hated Skaia for all of twelve hours. Not because you had any real reason to. But because you were told to by those in authority over you.

And then your dropship's hatch opened. And you saw light. A brilliant, magnificent light. The land below you seemed so big and far away. But it was beautiful. When you rappelled down your cable, you were terrified. But there was a big, soft patch of grass to catch your fall. It was the softest thing you'd ever felt. No material that either kingdom could produce could ever feel as comfortable. When you got up, you looked around. It was clear to you that you would never hate this land as long as you lived. No matter what anyone could tell you.

Does no one else see it? Pawns were not made to hate their Battlefield. Skaia isn't even something that **can** be hated, the way you see it. You formally reject the beliefs of the kingdom of Derse with regards to the yearning of Skaia's destruction.

But you wouldn't follow Prospitian rule either. You believe that both Kings are little more than tyrants concerned only with their own causes. They don't care about any pawn, or their struggles! They don't care how many of you they send to their deaths! In their eyes, there are always more pawns to come!

You would have no issue if, after all was said and done, the White King declared a state of peace, and relinquished his rule to live among pawns. But the Black King must pay for inciting this war, and for plotting the land's destruction! It is only then, when the kings are out of the picture, that this war may end, and your lives may begin.

Think carefully. How many of you wish to keep their way of life? A life of following orders and shedding blood, only to die in the end? All you want is the safety of the land, and the freedom of every pawn to live the lives they desire. Wouldn't you rather spread out across the land? Build settlements? Farm the land? Strike the earth?

**That** is the life you envision for the pawns of this world. An era of freedom for all. A time of peaceful, happy living. You can't prove that these are your true dreams, or your true intentions. But you **CAN** give your word that they are. And your word is all that you have.

You give your word. You solemnly swear that every word of what you have said represents your true beliefs. You give your word that you act only in the best interests of the pawns as a group. And **that**, dear friends, is exactly why you should be trusted.

You look up from your tablet. The foyer is almost packed to capacity with black and white pawns. All eyes are directed upwards where you have projected your words onto several sections of the wall. You meet the gaze of your audience as they gradually finish their reading, and look to you.  
Utter silence fills the room. Followed by an eruption of applause.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Usurp

You are now the first guy again. Your name is 2323 of the Derse Army. But you guess you're not in the Derse Army any more. Not since 22 decided to run things.

You are a **captain**, with your own **hat** and **star** to prove it. Or, at least, you **were** a captain. You're not too sure about how things work around here now. Like whether or not captains are still captains. You wish 22 had been a little clearer about things like that.

Ehh. 22's too busy to worry about little details like that. He's got a revolution to run here. Guys like him have gotta focus on the big picture, see? Let the chumps and the low-rollers sweat the small stuff!

Hmmm. It's just not like your old friend 22. To be up and doing this sort of thing. Seizing power and whatnot. What happened to the gentle ol' gaffer that was too skittish to raise a spear in self-defense? You were always getting that guy out of scrapes and the like. It's like he's a changed pawn now.

Oh, but that's not to say you don't have his back any more or anything. Quite the contrary; you were officially appointed as his right-hand pawn a little while ago. His first mate. His second-in-command. His lieutenant-at-arms. He made it very clear that, should anything happen to him, it would be you who would carry on the fight.

You never thought he had it in him. It's like he found his vim overnight. His presence alone stopped a battle in the valley. And now he's going to raise all sorts of hell to put an end to this war. It was something you'd both agreed on from a while back. That you both loved Skaia. That you hated this war. That you wished it would all just stop. Only difference is that he had the guts to leave. To tough it out on his own. What a guy.

And now he's back. He's back, and he's making things happen in a big way. You can't get over this guy's newfound charisma. His ability to sway a crowd. To win their favor. To make everyone just stop fighting. You only hope this peace will last.

Over the past hour, you and 22 have been overseeing the operations of Derse Castle as your movement's temporary home base. Injured pawns from both sides of the conflict were brought in on stretchers to the infirmary for treatment. You rejoiced inwardly every time you saw a wounded Prospitian carried in by two Dersites, or vice versa. The first step toward a new age of peace and friendship between the pawns. It's just what 22 envisioned.

During this time, you recognized your old friend 2313 as an avid stretcher-carrier. He met your eye, and nodded in greeting. He couldn't believe any of what was happening, either. None of you could have seen it coming.

After you were promoted to captain, you had to leave your old unit, and undergo days of rigorous captain's training. The last time you saw 13 was a week ago. Time flies.

You and 22 made a point of letting everyone know that it's you and him who're overseeing things here. It's you guys giving the orders now, and no one else. The sooner you can get everyone to believe that, the smoother this revolution's going to go.

You realize that the majority of pawns are naturally inclined to subordination. Most pawns would rather be told what to do than make big decisions and risk messing things up.

But that's not to say that pawns can't think for themselves. Indeed, if your fellow pawns were **that** simple-minded, they would have continued fighting on the orders of their kings instead of uniting under 22's flag.

You fear that, after all is said and done, the masses may not know what to do with their newfound freedom. It may take many of them some time to adjust to not having to follow any orders or schedule. Ideally, you could make the most of this through organized labor to benefit everyone.

But everyone would have to understand that no one's doing any forcing or bossing around. They would work for everyone's own good. And if they don't like your system, they'll be free to go somewhere else. Or **change** the system, you guess. That's what you're doing, after all.

A troubling thought occurs to you. How loyal are the pawns on the homeworlds to their respective kings? 22 had the transportalizers upstairs shut down to prevent agents from stopping the revolution. They're likely on their way in ships by now. If that's the case, they won't be here for several hours. Support from Prospit could arrive in minutes, but there's not as much chance of them trying to stop you. Why would they want to keep you from killing their number one enemy?

But what about afterwards? When the Derse agents arrive to find their king dead? Will they just roll over and accept that? Or will they stay loyal to the King even in his death, and try to arrest you all for treason? You're confident that you have enough numbers to deter them for now, but what if they call in reinforcements?

Just how many agents do they have up on Derse? And what of the **Queen**? Surely, she would try to apprehend you all, no matter the cost. If not to defend the King, then at least to avenge him afterwards. How many pawns would she need to take out all of yours?

Even as you set out to stop a war, you just might end up starting a new one. Killing the King isn't going to make everything just go away all of a sudden. There will be repercussions. How many of your own pawns will regret what they've done? How many will turn against you when the call to serve queen and country rings out?

Would there even be a prolonged campaign? Who's to say they won't just rain bombs down from the sky on all of you wretched usurpers? It'd certainly be more cost-effective than taking hundreds of prisoners! Who knows what evils the Derse Kingdom is capable of? A kingdom left to cry bloodlust in the name of vengeance for its beloved fallen king?

You should definitely voice your concerns with your best friend and stalwart leader. Wait. No. Even if the kingdom **were** to rain fiery justice down in the wake of a king's slaying…

There wouldn't be a damn thing any of you could do to stop it. Sure, it's a worrying thought. But there's no sense in trying to solve that problem until it arises. Let 22 focus on the task at hand. He's got enough on his mind already. You can deal with **that** particular situation when the king is in the ground. Even if that **does** happen, things are still likely to change back home with that tyrant out of the picture.

It really does worry you, though. Any change at this level is bound to have consequences for the pawns responsible. You're just glad you'll have seen them coming.

* * *

It didn't take long to assemble the troops. 22 sort of just announced that it was time, and waited for the majority to gather outside the castle walls. There was no formation. No structure. He didn't care for it. At this point, a given pawn could be either with him or against him. Those against him could stay behind. And those with him could come along. It was as simple as that.

This is it. You're finally preparing to march out. One last campaign. You never thought it would come to this. But you know that 22 is right. There's no other solution. Down with the King.

When most of the pawns have gathered, 22 sounds a horn, and starts walking in the direction of the Black King's Haunt. Any stragglers can catch up with the group if they really want to.

You take your place by his side. The flag in his hand blows freely in the wind despite its many perforations. What an amazing guy. You wish you could say more in encouragement. But the tablets aren't suitable for walk-and-talk.

In any case, the time for fancy words and moral support is over. All that matters now is that he can count on you to watch his back at the decisive moment. Something you've gotten pretty good at after all this time.

You turn to glance behind you. Your forces number in the hundreds, and stretch all the way back to the castle. You wonder if the ones at the back can even see who they're following at this point. Maybe they're just following the crowd. Going along with whatever's happening. So long as you have their support on **some** level…

After fifteen minutes of marching, you reach the coast of the ocean Caeruleus. The cool sea breezes fill your lungs with moist ocean air. The salty smell is a refreshing change from the dank underground odors that you're used to. The soil beneath you gives way to soft black-and-white sand that crunches lightly with each step you take.

The sea to your left is a wonderful deep blue, darker than the sky. You always marveled at its beauty on your way to missions at the Black King's Haunt. Now you think this bay would be the ideal spot for a new settlement of free pawns. Maybe farther up, where the river meets the sea. You'd love to oversee its construction later on. If the others agree with you, that is.

You press onward, your course only tangential to the ocean. You pass green forests and clear lakes. You traverse rolling hills and lush valleys. The sheer breadth of the Skaian landscape just blows you away. How you long to live among it, and not be sequestered underground.

You march through the region known as the Black King's Haunt. The King is known to inhabit the innermost part of his territory. If you keep going in this direction, you'll encounter him in a matter of minutes. You feel a lump start to form in your throat. You find it just a little harder to breathe. Things are finally coming to a head. You do your best to not let your anxiety show.

You crest yet another hill in the undulating landscape. The King's looming figure presents itself as you rise. The scepter he wields has contorted his form with hideous, alien features.

His crown is ridiculous and gaudy, with four lopsided points. It looks more like a fool's headdress than a symbol of absolute power. His shoulders are adorned with jet black spikes that lacerate his kingly garb.

His flowing, purple cloak is pierced by the large sword stuck through his chest. It's as if a giant ran him through, yet he does not bleed. His sides are blighted with two loathsome, black tendrils. Perhaps someone wished to envision the most hideous abomination to have ever lived, but stopped themselves halfway. Such is the appearance of your King.

His back is turned to you to survey the raging battle for his wretched life. Beyond him, hundreds of troops are fighting. Some to protect him, some to destroy him. He stands as tall as ten pawns. In the distance, you can see the silhouettes of even taller beings.

The mighty knight, in all its equestrian glory, stands at maybe one and a half times the King's height. One of its four massive hooves could crush ten pawns at once! Two long tendrils sprout from the sides, much like the King's own. One such black knight battles a white jester far in the distance.

The jester stands a little shorter than the knight, on legs you would think not strong enough to support its massive, barrel-chested figure. It wears a hat like the king's crown, but with three lopsided points instead of four. It wrestles the knight with its massive bare hands, despite having a perfectly good blade lodged in its chest.

A winged variation of the jester looks to be even bigger than the knight, though you think it would be impossible for something of its size to fly through the air. Maybe the wings are only for show.

Your only comfort is that these massive, lumbering war machines seem to be too far away to stop your regicide in time. As of now, your presence in the haunt goes unnoticed, even by the King. Threats against his life usually come from the enemy castle. He would never think that an attempt on his life could be made from the opposite direction.

You descend into the dip just before the hill that the King stands on. As you start to climb the hill towards him, he finally hears the sounds of your army's marching footsteps, and turns around to face you.

* * *

The Black King usually has a standing bodyguard of at least four bishops, eight rooks, and thirty pawns-at-arms around him at all times. However, in light of the sheer numbers of Prospitian troops sent to kill him at the moment, he has sent all of his personal guard down to the front lines to even the odds.

It was a risky decision on his part. But he figured that his last line of defense wouldn't be of much use to him if his previous lines of defense were completely decimated. His guards are the most elite in the kingdom. A single one of his bishops could cast spells to weaken enemies, shield allied forces, or rain fire and explosives down on an incoming army. The King's guard is a force to be reckoned with.

Now, 22's mixed army of pawns is almost upon the King. You grip your sword tightly. Soon, a time will come where you'll never have to use it again. Never have to kill again. You were so very good at it. Your prowess in battle was what ultimately led you to become a captain. But after all was said and done, each life you took ended up tearing you apart inside. You're glad that this will all soon come to an end.

22 doesn't signal for anyone to speed up, or break into a charge. He knows there's no need for it. He couldn't have asked for a better opportunity. The King is all alone. His royal guard battles a familiar enemy in the valley below. Now he's left all by himself to face an army he never knew could exist. An army led by one of his own subjects.

At first, he may have assumed that reinforcements had arrived from his castle. Now, as the realization dawns on him, his narrow slit-eyes widen. He takes a single step back, and grips his scepter tightly in his right hand. It's the look of a King about to lose it all.

Perhaps if his battle form possessed a left arm, he would be able to draw his sword and hold his own. Alas, the stump in its place proves useless. And the right arm holds the scepter needed to maintain his current form. He cannot draw.

22 holds up his left hand in an order to halt, a few paces from the King's feet. The unstoppable army stops of its leader's volition. Perhaps to offer the option of surrender. Perhaps to lord his victory over his former king. Only he knows for sure.

His eyes narrow, and glare at the King. Months of bitter warfare and bloodshed will soon be avenged. His movement has brought him and the masses to the foot of the King's towering figure. And now, this chapter of the battlefield's history will finally come to an end.

The flag of tattered red flutters in the gentle breeze. The Black King looks down at the purple-clad farmer who would lead this army. His countenance reclaims its composure. A king will not beg or grovel for his life. If you are to kill him, then so be it. He looks to his scepter, as if to deactivate it and surrender his supreme stature.

Something to his right catches his eye. As you turn to look, you wonder what it could be. It flies high in the air, a black dot against a blue sky. The dot approaches quickly, and flies over the King's head.

As it changes direction, you can see it clearly for a split second. Two wings, two tendrils, and a jester's hat. The figure pulls the sword from its chest, and dives toward the King with blinding speed. The scepter is broken. The King shrinks to only a head taller than you, and loses his unusual features.

The King blinks in confusion. Only the scepter's handle remains in his grasp. Its massive head crashes to the ground a second later. The figure has landed. A long stillness ensues. The figure rises. A fellow usurper, perhaps?

The King's head is cleft from his shoulders in one smooth movement of the newcomer's polished black sword. The King's lifeless torso slumps to the ground, blood pouring from its neck. His head falls to the ground. It's over.

The usurper now looks to you and your army, as if noticing you for the first time. His sword is stained with the blood of your dead monarch. A grim smile forms across his face, showing sharp white teeth. You feel as though something has gone terribly wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen. But surely he must be on your side… right? You grip your sword tightly.

The mystery usurper is a blur as he comes towards you. You feel a sharp pain in your chest that runs straight through to your back. You look down, and realize you've been stabbed right through. Your uniform develops a reddening stain. The pain is unbearable. Your own sword slips from your grasp.

The monster pulls his sword out of you, and throws you off to the side. You land on your back about ten paces away. You're lying on the side of the hill, your body at an incline with your head at the top. Your carapace is splintered, and blood pours out of two separate wounds. The pain is a little duller now. The smell of rust and iron fills your nostrils.

Shouldn't you be panicking right now? You've just been run through. Maybe since it came so suddenly, you didn't have time to panic. Yeah, that's probably it. You wonder who that guy was. The guy who stabbed you. He's not on the King's side, and he's not on your side. Maybe he's on his own side.

You hope the others can deal with that guy okay. He seems pretty strong. The way he cut through that big metal scepter like it was nothing. They'll be fine. Strength in numbers and all that.

It occurs to you that you might not survive this. Pawns usually die when stuff like this happens to them. You cough weakly.

It's a shame that you couldn't be there to help usher in this new era of peace. The King is dead, so you're sure that things are quickly going to start changing for the better.

22's going to miss you when you're gone. That guy was your best friend. And you were his. Two peas in a pod, you and him. You guess you'll miss him too, wherever it is you go. Guess you'll find out soon.

You look up. There's no other place you can look, really. You're glad you can spend your last moments looking up. You'd hate to die on your front, and you don't think you'd have the energy to roll yourself over. At least the pain's almost faded away completely.

Would you look at that sky today. That big, blue-colored ceiling for the clouds to stay under. Having seen a great deal of what's on the ground in your travels, you can say that what's right above you is the most beautiful thing in the world.

The fluffy white clouds are drifting across the sky, as they always do. You think of all the great and wonderful things they've shown you. All the pictures of amazing people in faraway lands. You quite liked to look at them, even when they didn't have anything to show you.

You've given it a lot of thought. And now you're sure. You really wouldn't mind being a cloud someday.

You take your last breath of air.


End file.
